English Translation

206 According to Article 4, the executioner (Scharfrichter) should have behaved perfectly in every respect and arrived at the execution in a dark suit (without a head cover). However, his helpers had to satisfy rubber aprons, gloves and boots when they literally wade through streams of blood. Since the deportations of the German courts in the Protectorate for execution of the death penalty to Dresden and Berlin were dragged out and thus overexpensed, the Nazis began executions in the Prague Pankrác prison, where a separate execution site for execution was officially established by the Reich's Minister of Justice Dr. Georg Otto Thierack of 5 April 1943. (590) Pankrác's hatch was a meeting room, execution room and coffin. All rooms were made in tile lining of hospital style. The executions of guillotine took place exclusively on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and everything was done according to the same order. At 8:30 p.m., after breakfast, the prosecutor arrived at the Department of Death II/A and read the names of the convicts who were to be executed that day, and after their demonstration he presented them with a repeated formula: ©In the name of the Fuhrer and the Reich Protector, your request for mercy is denied and at the same time informs you that the sentence will be executed today after 16. They were then taken to a preparatory cell where they were allowed to write their last letter, although they had already had their hands tied in front. They were then sentenced in their underwear, handcuffed behind their backs, women with hair over their necks, combed or cut, presented to a meeting room in front of a five-member committee, in which they were meeting the National Attorney of the Nazi Justice, the NSDAP official, the commander of the Pankrác prison of the Gestapo, the clerk and the doctor. After the demonstration, the prosecutor made a personal identification and notification of execution of the sentence. Then the executioner arrived, who took him with two helpers to the execution room, which was separated only by a black curtain. The execution lasted 1©2 minutes, a day like this was executed 5-6 people, but more, on 4 August 1944 even 29 people. In addition to the executions of the guillotine, however, there was an unknown number of persons executed by hanging on a steel trap with eight hooks hanging on the ceiling next to the guilotine. In the coffin, the bodies of the executed starfish were placed on the concrete floor