Danuška Němcová

Danuška Němcová, was born on 14 January 1934. She was a Czech psychologist, dissident from the communist regime and one of the first signatories of Charter 77.

In the 1950s, she studied psychology at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University. In 1978, together with the other signatories of Charter 77, she created the Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Persecuted (VONS).

In 1979, she was arrested and spent half a year in custody. In January 1989, at the beginning of “Palach Week”, Němcová was arrested on her way to the Holy Monument to Wenceslas to place flowers as a speaker for Charter 77.

In November 1989, she became a co-founder of the Civic Forum and in 30 January 1990, she held the position of deputy in the House of Commons, moving to the Civic Movement in 1991, after the extinction of the Civic Forum. She headed Havel’s Goodwill Committee and worked for the Refugee Counseling Center.

In 1990 she received the prize from the international Catholic peace movement Pax Christi and, in 1998, she received the Presidential Medal of Merit. An advocate for psychological and legal assistance to refugees, in 2000 she received the Middle Europe award and worked at the Refugee Counseling Center and Center for Migration Issues. In 2016, he received the Arnošt Lustig award.