This is last photo of 24 year old Czech maternity nurse Marie Fikackova, just a few moments before she was executed

Taken on 13 April 1961, this is last photo of 24 year old Czech maternity nurse Marie Fikackova, just a few moments before she was executed by short drop hanging in the execution cell of Pankrac Prison in Prague.

Fikackova was convicted and sentenced to death for murdering two new born babies who were in her care at Suscie Hospital in Czechslovakia. She was by all accounts a popular and respected nurse at her hospital, but one with a dark secret in that she couldn't stand the crying of newborns. She tried to silence the babies by pushing on their craniums, which of course killed both. She also confessed that she had killed and harmed a number of other babies, but this was never proved.

I find the picture haunting, as Fikackova looks so calm and normal, despite the fact that she is going to face her imminent death. And it would be a painful and long death, since short drop hanging would mean death by slow strangulation, rather than the relatively quick long drop method where the condemned's neck is broken leading to instantaneous death. As a nurse, Fikackova would have been very conscious of what she was about to face.

She is naked in the photo, as it was not uncommon in Communist Eastern European countries for those condemned to be executed naked, for the rather chilling reason that the authorities wanted to save a prison uniform from being soiled by blood or other bodily fluids during executions.

From the reports of her execution, as a slight woman, Fikackova took almost 20 minutes to die of asphyxiation on the rope. Heavier men would tend to lose consciousness quickly, as their greater weight puts more pressure on their windpipes and arteries. Fikackova unfortunately was conscious and gasping for breath for many minutes before she passed out and then died.

She committed one of the worst crimes imaginable, but she in no way deserved the very barbaric execution she received.

Shockingly, Czechslovakia continued to use the short drop method until the death penalty was abolished in 1990 with the fall of Communism. The last person executed was in 1989. Two further women were executed in Prague in this way, Irena Curbirkova for murder in 1966, and 23 year old Olga Hepnarova in 1975. Hepnarova drove a truck into a tram stop, killing 8. She was the last woman executed in Czechslovakia. A picture of the execution cell that Fikackova met her end on has been is below - it has been preserved as a reminder of more brutal times.

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