What's in a Prague street name

Matěchova was built in 1935.

Until 1960, the street was called Záloženská, due to its location near the local savings bank (záložna).

Ladislav Matěcha was born in Smrčí in 1893 and worked as a carpenter. He lived in house number 127 on this street.

He was a member of the Communist Party, as well as of the Včela consumer cooperative, which had been founded in 1905 and distributed food from warehouses to shops in working-class districts. Owned by the Social Democrats and the Communists in the 1920s, it became the exclusive property of the Communists in the 1930s.

In July 1942, Matěcha was sentenced to death for membership of the (now-illegal) Communist Party, and for high treason. He was executed at Plötzensee Prison, in Charlottenburg-Nord, Berlin, on 5 November of the same year.

Others murdered there on that day include https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2025/05/11/prague-4-day-92-stetkova/.