The Litoměřice District Court punished the former director of the local museum, Eva Štíbrová, for violating her duty to manage other people’s property with a three-year suspended sentence suspended for a probationary period of five years. She was threatened with up to eight years in prison. 10,000 items from the museum’s collections were lost for almost 16 million crowns. The court ordered Štíbrová to pay damages. The woman denies guilt. The judgment is not final.
The director of the museum was Štíbrová for 38 years until 2012, when she retired. The new director, Tomáš Wiesner, had an extensive inventory of the collections made, during which it was found that a number of objects are missing, the historical value of which is often incalculable.
Among the rarest are the Latin gradual from the 15th century, which happened to appear in the Austrian National Library, or the unique Hussite chalice. The graduate belonged to the collections of the regional archive, the museum had lent it for a long time. Štíbrová is to pay the archive 900,000 crowns and almost 15 million crowns to the Ústí Region, which is the founder of the museum.
The inventory lasted three years, and Wiesner turned to the police for missing items. “Basically, there is everything that is traded across the board. What was worth something has disappeared. It was a major disruption to the entire collection. The items include glass, tin, porcelain, weapons, World War II militaria, numismatics,” Wiesner said earlier. . According to the indictment, valuable collection items were also exchanged for less valuable, doubtful depreciation and losses.
Štíbrová defended herself by saying that the premises available to the museum did not allow for an inventory. The depository had a museum at the castle in Ploskovice and in the local cultural house. However, according to the court, its protection was not ensured. Objects from the depository and the museum building in Litoměřice were lost. The employees repeatedly warned the director of the loss of items, and she responded by finding them. Larger objects such as statues also disappeared.
According to the court, Štíbrová did not ensure the protection of collection items against theft and burglary, as it did not introduce a key regime and the keys to the depositories were freely accessible, even to unauthorized persons.
The objects disappeared and Štíbrová did nothing about it, the court said
The museum’s collections consisted of objects collected from abolished German schools, museums and monuments in the 1950s. The condition of the collections was poor, the objects were affected by mold. “Undoubtedly, it is not possible to determine the damage of missing objects and it is a question whether the objects were ever there,” said lawyer Lenka Mrázková.
The judge said witnesses confirmed the presence of a number of items in the collections. “Then they were no longer there when they moved. Many objects were examined historically, lent to exhibitions, the court does not allow this defense,” said Judge Alexandra Šetková. According to the court, the conditions in the depositories allowed for an inventory. “The collection has not been worked on for several years,” she said.
According to the court, the move was not right either. Gradually, it became clear what was missing. Štíbrová did nothing about it. The prosecutor said he was satisfied with the verdict, the court agreed with his proposal. Štíbrová did not comment on the verdict.
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