Tragic death of Jan Palach commemorated in Prague, Vsetaty
PRAGUE/VSETATY, Central Bohemia, Jan 14 (CTK) - Several tens of people met at the Prague Olsany cemetery to commemorate the 37th anniversary of Jan Palach's self-immolation in 1969, and another larger commemorative event was held in Palach's native town of Vsetaty today.
Palach, 20-year-old student of Prague's Faculty of Art, attempted to burn himself to death at Wenceslas square in Prague on January 16, 1969, in protest of the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact troops in August 1968, which crashed the communist-led reform movement. By his act, Palach also tried to wake up the nation from resignation. Palach fought for his life for three days. On January 19, 1969, he succumbed to the third-degree burns. His funeral, in which thousands of people took part, developed into a national demonstration for freedom and democracy.
"It was an act of helplessness and hopelessness, he could not do anything else. But his legacy is still alive, it is a great memento," said Jaroslava Cajova from the Janua company that organised the event at the Olsany cemetery at Palach's grave. Cajova expressed regrets that no constitutional officials participated in today's act of commemoration.
Some 130 people, including foreign guests, today attended the annual commemorative meeting in Vsetaty, marking Palach's tragic death. Journalist Jan Petranek said that Palach's message can show current people that they must not resign and they should overcome obstacles and resist even minor evil, compared to the totalitarian regime and the Soviet occupation in 1968. Palach's tragic death shocked the society which more or less passively accepted the occupation by foreign armies, and the beginning of "normalisation" of the communist rule.
Only a couple of days later, an 18-year-old secondary school student, Jan Zajic, burnt himself to death in Prague on February 25, 1969.
Palach's grave at the Olsany cemetery became a symbol of resistance, which the official representatives could not reconcile themselves to and ordered his bodily remains to be exhumed in October 1973, cremated and placed at the cemetery in Vsetaty. They were only returned back to Olsany in 1990, after the collapse of communism.
In 1991, then Czechoslovak president Vacalv Havel decorated Palach in memoriam with the highest state decoration, the Order of Tomas Garrigue Masaryk.
hol/dr