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Romea.cz
Four Czech senators undertake sole official honoring of the memory of Jan Palach, who set himself on fire 52 years ago to protest the Soviet occupation
17.1.2021 9:19
Jan Palach was the Charles University student who set himself on fire on 16 January 1969 to protest the end of the Prague Spring after the August 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops. A copy of his death mask is now the centerpiece of the Jan Palach memorial on Charles University s Faculty of Arts building on Jan Palach Square in Prague. (Collage: Romea.cz)
Czech Senator Miloš Vystrčil, who presides over the upper house, said yesterday that when the student Jan Palach set himself on fire on Wenceslas Sqaure in Prague 52 years ago, it was an unprecedented act in defense of freedom and an effort to lead the nation out of its unfree condition. Palach undertook his demonstration in January 1969 as an attempt to arouse people from the lethargy into which Czechoslovak society had fallen