This site, where anti-Nazi resistance members were imprisoned and executed during WW II, commemorates their painful history and also serves in part as a hall of residence for the University of Veterinary Sciences. After the war, some people from the surrounding neighbourhood moved away, even though they knew that the sounds of the past would not be heard again.
The exterior and interior exhibitions of the memorial reflect the suffering of the victims of Nazism. The Kounic Student Residence National Cultural Monument hall has a turbulent history. The building, completed in 1923 according to the design of the Czech Technical University professor Karel Hugo Kepka, originally served as a temporary home for 500 university students. This multifunctional building included a dining hall, gymnasium, lecture hall, and library.
On the morning of November 17, 1939, the residence was raided by the Gestapo and SS units, and many of the students were sent to concentration camps. From the beginning of 1940 until 26 April 1945 the residence served as an infamous Nazi prison and execution site.
Today, several sculptures located within the complex commemorate the tragic events of World War II. Most are the work of the sculptor Jiří Marek, who was selected by the Culture Department of the National Committee of the City of Brno. He, along with architects Jaroslav Hlavsa, Jaroslav Ryška, and Antonín Hladík created the proposal for the memorial to all the fallen, with its themes of Victory over Fascism, The Executed Man, and New Life.
The renovated and modernized building now belongs to the University of Veterinary Sciences Brno, and the Kounic Student Residence Resistance Memorial is housed there.
