Petr Zenkl was born as the eighth son of a small businessman, originally a tailor, in the South Bohemian town of Tábor.

Zenkl studied at the gymnasium (grammar school) in Tábor and later graduated from the Philosophy Faculty of the Charles University in Prague and in 1907 gained a doctorate.

[2] With American military help, he was able to fly through Frankfurt am Main and Paris to London, where he learned that his place as Mayor of Prague had been taken by the communist Václav Vacek.

In 1949-1974 he was a chairman of the exile Council of Free Czechoslovakia, based in Washington, D.C. After the fall of communism in 1989, his remains were transferred from the United States to the Vyšehrad Cemetery in Prague.

[4] In October 1991 he was awarded, in memoriam, the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, II class, by President Václav Havel.