President Wilson’s Statue Returned in Prague After 70 Years

September 12, 2011

Statue of the U.S. President Wilson returned back in front of the Prague main railway station.

After 70 years a statue honoring the U.S. President Woodrow Wilson (1913—1921) returned in Prague on September 8, 2011. The original monument, built in 1928  in gratitude for Woodrow Wilson’s crucial role in Czechoslovakia’s independence, was torn down by the Nazis in 1941.

The statue re-installation in front of the Prague’s main railway station was attended by Prague Mayor Bohuslav Svoboda, Mayor of Prague 1 District Oldrich Lomecky, U.S. Charge’ d’Affaires Joseph S. Pennington and Phillip M. Kasik, Vice-President of the American Friends of the Czech Republic, who placed a time capsule containing historic documents inside the base of the statue.

The project of the Woodrow Wilson monument’s reestablishment in Prague was initiated in 2008 by the American Friends of the Czech Republic (AFoCR), a Washington, D.C., based non-profit organization.

The official unveiling of the statue is scheduled to take place October 5, with President Václav Klaus, former President Václav Havel and foreign guests such as Madeleine Albright set to attend.