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The Piskáček home — the parachutists’ Vysočany base

Story period: January–October 1942

Location: Na Břehu, Prague-Vysočany

Jaroslav Piskáček’s family apartment in Vysočany was one of ANTHROPOID’s Prague bases. Piskáček linked Sokol helpers and arranged practical support. On 27 May he sheltered the wounded Jan Kubiš here, and physician Břetislav Lyčka came to treat him. Jaroslav, his wife Antonie, their son Miroslav and Antonie’s mother Anna Hrušková were later murdered in Mauthausen.

Family, work and Sokol

before the war–early 1942

A Vysočany designer turned his household into a base for a wider network.

Jaroslav Piskáček worked as a designer at ČKD and led the Vysočany Sokol branch. He lived in Na Břehu with Antonie and their son Miroslav. During the occupation he organized a clandestine group within his branch. Sokol relationships helped him connect other trusted helpers.

The household provided lodging and food. Their apartment was one of the places where helpers worked out how two men without ordinary Protectorate documents could live and move around Prague.

A doctor, papers and hidden equipment

January–May 1942

Assistance depended on many small, interlocking steps.

Piskáček helped move the equipment hidden after the landing near Nehvizdy. He took Gabčík, who had an injured leg, to Vysočany doctor Stanislav Hrubý. Later he worked with Hrubý on employment books and cover medical certificates that helped the parachutists remain outside compulsory employment.

Together with other Sokol members, he found safe apartments and supplies. Assistance was not a single hiding place, but a chain connecting families, doctors, officials and people transporting equipment.

Kubiš arrives with an injured eye

27 May 1942

After the attack, Kubiš reached Vysočany via the Novák apartment.

Kubiš first headed to the Novák family’s Libeň apartment after the attack, then came to the Piskáčeks with an injured eye. Through fellow Sokol member Antonín Oktábec, Jaroslav asked Břetislav Lyčka to come to the apartment. Lyčka treated Kubiš that evening.

The Nováks also discussed with Piskáček that day how to remove the bicycle Kubiš had left in Libeň. According to the study, Piskáček’s son Miroslav collected it and returned it to its owner, Jaroslav Smrž. Kubiš stayed in the apartment through a night of house searches across Prague.

Exposure and the family’s death

July–October 1942

The Gestapo reached the Vysočany network after the June wave of arrests.

The Gestapo arrested Jaroslav Piskáček at his ČKD workplace on 13 July, and Antonie and her mother Anna Hrušková at home that day. Miroslav was caught in Stachy on 17 July.

Jaroslav, Antonie and Anna Hrušková were subsequently imprisoned in Terezín’s Small Fortress. All four family members were murdered in Mauthausen on 24 October 1942. The ÚSTR study links this branch’s exposure to the earlier arrest of the Novák family, distinguishing it from the first June wave following Čurda’s denunciation.

The ÚSTR study identifies house no. 15 in Na Břehu, Vysočany. Without verified present-day address identity and geometry, the story does not assert an exact point or a modern street number.

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