Water Reservoir on Kinsky Square

The water reservoir on Kinsky Square at the foot of Sudek's favourite garden on Petřín hillside was situated near his apartment and studio, at Ǔjezd 28, a distance of about 500 m on foot.

Here, Josef Sudek captured one of the 67 air raid water reservoirs and water supplies for PragueAfter Zdeněk Wirth – Josef Sudek, Pražský kalendář 1946. Kulturní ztráty Prahy 1939–1945, Nakladatelství V. Poláčka, Praha, 1945, unpaginated. with a view of the former Štefánik's barracks (the Palace of Justice today at no. 234/5). During the Protectorate, the building served as a barracks for the government army,The government army was the name for the official armed forces of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, established under German control. On issues concerning the government army see for example Miroslav Kalousek, Vládní vojsko 1939–1945. Vlastenci či zrádci, Libri, Praha, 2002. from 1944 it also housed a hospital. During the May Uprising, the mobilization centre of the insurgents and the centre of the uprising on the left bank of the Vltava was placed there. The army, concentrated there from 5 May 1945, were part of the renewed liberal Czechoslovak Army and volunteers fighting in the centre of the city were equipped there with weapons and munition.Jiří Padevět, Průvodce protektorátní Prahou. Místa – události – lidé, Academia, Praha, 2013, pp. 534–535.

An interesting feature of the image is the tank seen in the background, a memorial to the liberation of Prague by the Red Army. It was placed on Kinsky Square immediately after the end of the war. As a matter of fact, the tank, standing on a stone base until 1991, did not take part in the liberation at all. The first Soviet tank arriving to the city was damaged in a German gun attack and was therefore considered inappropriate as a memorial. Thus a completely different type of tank was used (IS-2 instead of T34) and it was officially presented as the first tank to reach Prague.http://www.rozhlas.cz/hrdina/70/_zprava/pribeh-tanku-c-23--1484007 (accessed 14 July 2017). In 1991, the memorial was painted pink by the artist David Černý.http://www.davidcerny.cz/CZ/tank.html (accessed 16 July 2017). The story – closely followed by the media at the time – is documented on the website devoted to the pink tank on https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_%C4%8D%C3%ADslo_23 (accessed 16 July 2017) with other references.