15 March 1939. German troops march into Prague and the Gestapo establishes control over the occupied Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Milada Horáková — lawyer, women’s rights advocate, and committed democrat — refuses to submit. She joins the underground resistance, helping families of the persecuted and working against the Nazi regime. Arrested in 1940, she endures years in prisons in Prague, Terezín, and Germany until her liberation in 1945.

But the end of the war does not bring lasting freedom.

After the Communist coup of February 1948, Czechoslovakia falls under Soviet domination. As a member of parliament, Horáková openly warns that democracy is being dismantled. Refusing exile, she remains in Prague, fully aware of the danger. In 1949, she is arrested by the Communist state security and subjected to brutal interrogations.

Her 1950 trial becomes a staged Stalinist spectacle, designed to crush democratic opposition. Accused of fabricated crimes, she refuses to betray her convictions. Milada Horáková stood against both Nazi and Communist tyranny — and paid with her life, becoming one of the most powerful symbols of postwar repression in Central Europe.