What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on Twitter on 7 July 2022.

Pitterova was part of Chelčického (coming up in a few days) from 1885 until 1996, when it was given a name of its own.

Přemysl Pitter was born in Smíchov in 1895. He studied typography in Leipzig in 1911-2, and, after his father’s death a year later, took over the family business, a printing house.

While serving in WW1, he became a devout Christian. He deserted, and was sentenced to death for this, but escaped, and, in 1920, began to study at the Hus Faculty of Theology.

In 1933, he opened the Milíč House / Milíčův dům, offering extracurricular activities for disadvantaged children. During this decade, with the threat of war looming, he dedicated himself to pacifist activities.

After 1945, he organised ‘Operation Castles’, setting up sanatoriums in castles in to treat Jewish children returning from concentration camps.

Indignant at the treatment of Germans who were placed in the camps after WWII, he extended his help to German children as well.

After 1948, Pitter was persecuted, and was forced to resign as director of the Milíč House. He escaped to West Germany in 1951, from where he worked with the BBC and Radio Free Europe.

He moved to Zurich in 1963, where he set up various Czechoslovak societies. He died there in 1976.

He was named Righteous Among the Nations (Yad Vashem) by the Israeli government in 1976; Havel posthumously awarded him the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk in 1991.

There was a 1996 ČT documentary about Pitter on YouTube, but it’s disappeared since July.