Olga Havlova, a human rights activist and wife of President Vaclav Havel, died Saturday at age 62.
She died at her home in Prague after suffering from cancer for several months, the president's office said.Born Olga Splichalova in a Prague working-class family, Havlova met her husband - the oldest son of a Prague industrialist impoverished by Communist nationalization in 1948 - when he was a theater stage hand in the 1950s.
They married in 1964 but had no children.
Havlova was a signatory of the Charter 77 human rights manifesto and for many years worked within the Czech dissident network led by her husband. When he was in jail from 1979-82, he wrote her a long series of philosophical letters, later published as "Letters to Olga."
Charter 77, signed by leading intellectuals and others in January 1977, started a long human rights offensive against Soviet rule in what was then Czechoslovakia. Ultimately, it led to the formation of Civic Forum, a broad democratic movement that toppled the Communist regime in 1989 and catapulted Havel, a dissident playwright, into the presidency.
Respected and admired by the Czech dissident world, Havlova worked for Havel relentlessly during his several jail terms.