The death of Jan Palach

My late father-in-law was a Czech night fighter pilot in the Second World War known in the media at the time as the ‘Night Hawk’. That explains the title of this blog and why I’m interested in all things Czech.
So I want to point out that today is the 40th anniversary of the death of Jan Palach, a young student – the same age as me – who three days earlier set fire to himself as a protest against the acceptance by the Czechoslovak people of the so-called ‘normalisation’ which had followed the Warsaw Pact invasion of his country the year before.
On one of my earliest visits to what is now the Czech Republic (I’ve now been 21 times), I visited the grave of Jan Palach in Olsany cemetery in Prague. The city also has a square named after him.
More information here.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 19th, 2009 at 7:10 am and is filed under History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

One Comment

  • Panther
    July 5th, 2009 at 7:39 pm

    Thanks for posting this, Roger. I too love things Czech. I’ve been to Prague 3 times and intend to go many more. I’m right now busy with writing a long poem about Jan Palach and am moved to see online how many people still remember him.

 




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