Msgr. Ph.Dr. Otto Lev [Otto] Stanovský (08/11/1882 - 05/12/1945), a Czech Roman Catholic priest, educator of the sons of František Ferdinand ďEste, rector of the Prague priestly seminary and author of a number of sacred music compositions. Born in Slatina, died in Prague.
After the death of Cardinal Kašpar in 1941, he was together with Msgre. Bořek-Dohalský one of the leading candidates for the office of Prague archbishop. He was deeply pious, exceptionally capable, an excellent educator, exact in observing liturgical regulations and in other matters, a gifted musician and an excellent singer.
He was born in Slatina No. 55 (now Mr. Taneček) as the son of a tailor and housekeeper Jozef Stanovský and his wife Amália née Gebauerová. In addition to his older brother Rainer (* 1879), he also had a brother Oskar (* 1884), a sister Rosa (* 1886), a sister Irma (Olga) and eight other siblings. In 1885, the family moved to house No. 14 in the same village (the Vondrák house near the church).
He graduated from the grammar school in Roudnice nad Labem and joined the Capuchin order during his studies. After graduation, he entered the priestly seminary in Litoměřice, where he also received priestly ordination on July 15, 1906. As a priest, he worked in Mnichov Hradiště, where he was a chaplain, in Liblice and Semile. He then went to the Frintaneum college in Vienna for higher theological studies and after spending three years there he returned to his diocese, where he was appointed vice-rector of the student dormitory in Mladá Boleslav. Later, on the recommendation of the Bishop of Litoměřice, Josef Gross, he became the tutor of the sons of František Ferdinand ďEste, princes Maximilian and Arnošt (this period of his life is also reminded of a photograph that can be seen during a tour of the third circuit of the Konopiště castle, in which he teaches the children of the heir to the throne to skate on the pond under the castle ). When he was with his wards at the Chlum castle near Třeboně, on June 28, 1914, he received a telephone message about the death of their parents in the Sarajevo assassination. In 1924, Archbishop Kordač appointed him his secretary and later director of the Arnošta z Pardubice university college in Prague, Stanovský then became vice-rector of the Prague seminary and in 1929 he was appointed its rector (he held this position until 1932). He became a canon of the Vyšehrad Chapter (February 1933) and the Prague Metropolitan Chapter (1934). He also served as the national chairman of the Work of the Propagation of the Faith. When Jan Stavěl, the chairman of the Imperial Headquarters of Catholic Charity Unions in Czechoslovakia, died in 1938, Stanovský was appointed as his successor. In mid-June 1942, a representative of the Orthodox Church, Jan Sonnevend, contacted him and, without giving further details, asked him to hide several persecuted persons in one of the Catholic churches; Stanovský warned him that Catholic churches are very closely guarded by the Gestapo, and therefore the applicant did not insist on his request and did not contact him again. It later turned out to be a hiding place for the seven paratroopers who assassinated Reinhard Heydrich as part of Operation Anthropoid, and on July 3, 1942, at 5 a.m., Stanovský was arrested by the Gestapo. He was sentenced to death on December 28, 1942 (according to other sources, January 29, 1943) and taken to Plötzensee Prison, where he awaited execution, for not informing the authorities of the request to hide persecuted persons. After numerous interventions (especially by the Berlin nuncio Msgr. Orsenig), his death sentence was changed to eight years in prison. He was later taken to Straubing, where he was kept in a hay dungeon and chained for some time. His sister Irma, who ran his household before his arrest, was later also arrested and subsequently taken to forced labor in Hennigsdorf near Berlin, where she worked in a munitions factory (she did not arrive in Prague until June 22, 1945). After the end of World War II, he returned to Prague and continued his work as a canon and chairman of Charity. However, he appeared in public practically only once, when on June 24, 1945, he brought the Palladium of the Czech lands from Stará Boleslav to Prague for the festivities, which were held as thanks to the Virgin Mary for the protection of the country and the liberation of Czechoslovakia. He dies at the end of 1945, probably as a result of imprisonment. He was buried in a canon grave at the Břevnov cemetery.