Deputy minister Tomáš Kopečný laid flowers on the grave of Czech pilot Vítězslav J. Rosík
17.02.2020 / 14:21 | Aktualizováno: 05.03.2020 / 16:21
Czech Deputy Minister of Defense Tomáš Kopečný honored the memory of Colonel Vitězslav J. Rosík, who served as a pilot of the Czechoslovak army and the British Royal Air Force. He laid flowers on his grave in the cemetery of Gulele in Addis Ababa together with H. E. Czech Ambassador to Ethiopia PhDr. Pavel Mikeš, head of the Military History Institute in Prague Brigadier General Aleš Knížek and Czech military attaché in Kenya, Lieutenant Colonel Ondřej Abonyi.
Colonel Vítězslav Rosík (* December 23, 1895 Bzová - † May 9, 1955 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia)
Colonel Rosík first served with the Czechoslovak Air Force and then worked at the Czechoslovak Ministry of National Defense. Between 1932 and 1937 he served as military and air attaché at the embassy in Rome and in 1938 he then returned to the Ministry. In the autumn of 1939 he left illegally to France and after defeat of France he continued to the United Kingdom. There he served in several staff positions. In June 1941 he was assigned to the Czechoslovak Inspectorate in London and by December 1944 he had achieved the RAF rank of Group Captain and Czechoslovak Air Force rank of plukovník (Colonel). In March 1945 he was transferred to the Czechoslovak Military Mission at the Supreme Allied Expeditionary Force Command, initially as Head of Mission, and from 1 May to the end of September 1945 as its Commanding Officer.
Czech Representatives at the grave
After the end of the war he worked for the Czechoslovak. military mission in Berlin and after returning to his homeland hes was appointed to several command functions. After 1948 he went back to emigration and at the invitation of the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie traveled to Ethiopia, where he helped build the Ethiopian Air Force. He then died in Ethiopia and is buried in Addis Ababa. His grave was renewed in 2018 with the help of the Czech Embassy in Ethiopia.
In addition to the memory of Colonel Rosík, the representatives of the Czech Republic also honored the memory of university professor František Rouček, who was also buried in Addis Ababa.
Grave of professor Rouček
Professor František Rouček (* 25 April 1891, Nové Strašecí - † 29 December 1967, Addis Ababa)
Rouček was an important figure in the interwar Czechoslovak legal science. He participated in the unification of laws in force in the Czech Lands, Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia. After the war, a close associate of the presidents Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and Edvard Beneš became a rector of the newly established University of Political and Social Sciences in Prague, but shortly after the communist coup in 1948, he left to exile in Ethiopia. There he was invited by Emperor Haile Selassie in 1950 and became one of the first law teachers at the then-established University College of Addis Ababa. Shortly before his death, he was offered the post of president of the Ethiopian Supreme Court. Unfortunately, Professor Rouček died in 1952 as a result of a fatal injury while hunting lions. His grave was also restored with the help of the Czech Embassy.
Deputy Minister Kopečný signs the memorial book