Legionnaires belonged to the elite of our nation, and it is no wonder that a great deal of attention will be paid to them within the cycle of gold ducats "National Heroes" of the Czech Mint. The first one is GenLegionnaires belonged to the elite of our nation, and it is no wonder that a great deal of attention will be paid to them within the cycle of gold ducats "National Heroes" of the Czech Mint. The first one is General Bedrich Homola.

The story of Bedřich Homola is typical of a Czechoslovak soldier in the 20th century. He voluntarily entered the Masaryk legions during the First World War and served in various command positions throughout Czechoslovakia during the First Republic. He stood up against the efforts of its distribution in the spring of 1939. After that he voluntarily entered domestic resistence movement against the German occupiers. He became one of the most important commanders of the military resistance organization called Defense of the Nation. His activities were a thorn in the Nazi´s eye. He built an underground army to intervene in the case of an anti-German uprising and, through extraordinary political overview, brought together a number of disparate resistance groups that he reorganized under one umbrella body. It is no wonder, then, that a man with the cover name "Ataman" came to the Gestapo viewfinder. Just before Bedrich Homola was executed in 1943, he wrote to his family, "I do not write about my victims, it is self-evident." The Communist regime then appreciated the merit of the hero general by sentencing him to general oblivion. Fortunately, this was not the case. Bedřich Homola himself predicted in the spring of 1941 that the Communist Party's rule would not last for more than 50 years in Bohemia.

"The front portrait of Bedrich Homola in the officer's uniform with the cap is dominated on the obverse side. From his firm point of view, he exudes courage and resolution that the general manifested in organized resistance during the Nazi occupation. The horizontal design of life years and the cause of death set in the nape dramatizes the heroic destiny of the general. In the left and right description at the interface between light and shadow are the texts GENERAL, BEDŘICH HOMOLA and the cover name ATAMAN," explains academic sculptor and author of the ducat Jiří Dostál. Horizontal elements of the obverse side are followed by the proof strip on the reverse side of the ducat, which symbolizes the difficult situation of occupation time. Elements on the reverse side are like a hook that is disturbed by cracks and wedges.

An integral part of each issue is a special packaging containing an expert essay of PhDr. Petra Koura, Ph.D., a renowned historian, an expert on modern Czech history and guarantor of the National Heroes project. You can put your collection of ducats in a practical collector´s box, which you can also find in the offer of the Czech Mint.