Avid readers might remember I went up the Zikov television tower for great views overs Prague. Well, whilst up the tower I looked East and observed this huge green Central Park looking park (pictured above). Not, speaking Czech we went for a stroll over, and quickly realised what I thought was a park was actually a huge cemetery. It was in fact Olsany Cemetery, the largest cemetery in Prague containing over two million burials.
The cemetery begins on the same block as the Atrium shopping centre and extends for kilometres to the East. There is a real atmosphere, it's overgrown in parts, lush and green. It's cooler in here, the trees provide shelter from the hot sun. I can't say I've ever felt anything like it; like your visiting the history of Prague all laid out before you, which you are in a way.
The cemetery has an interesting history it was established in 1680 for victims of the plague. The cemetery is famous for it's Art Nouveau monuments. Jan Palach, fellow history student and hero of the Czech resistance, is buried here who set himself on fire in Wencelas Square to protest the Warsaw Pact invasion to put down the Prague Uprising in 1968.
The headstones and statues are really amazing. It's all very interesting, not to sound too ghoulish.
I'm a curious traveller, that's why I end up in a cemetery, but this was my real find today (pictured above) This curious building next to the cemetery is Radio Free Europe.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Europe/Radio_Liberty.
Remember, in the Cold War, when the West used to broadcast radio into the countries behind the Iron Curtain? Well, this is Radio Free Europe, now moved to Prague from Munich where it used to be based. Who would have thought that we still broadcast into countries where information is still restricted?
I can't help thinking of the comedy series, - Allo, Allo, with the hapless Rene Artois answering the secret radio with "Allo, 'allo, zis is Night'awk, are you receiving me?" (first episode click here ).
Incidentally, perhaps the most famous radio message was Radio London to the French Resistance, "Blessent mon cœur d'une langueur monotone ("wound my heart with a monotonous languor") indicating the D Day invasion of Normandy would begin in the next 24 hours. The success of Operation Overlord led to the liberation of Western Europe from the Nazis.
By standing up to Communism, the United States and her allies, helped liberate Eastern Europe. Now, I wonder whether Europe have the will to stand strong and stand up for Ukraine. We should have stood strong and not given into Hitler and let him take over Czechoslovakia before WW2. Remember Chamberlain waving the worthless scrap of paper that was the Peace Treaty with Hitler, saying 'Peace in our time'. You saw how that turned out. I also wonder if we still send coded messages to our agents and people 'yearning to breathe free' in totalitarian countries.
It's hard looking back now to remember that in the 1950/60s there was real fear of World War 3 and a nuclear war or maybe not so hard now with the trouble in Ukraine. The history of the Czech Republic of course is intricablly tied up in the history of Communism and the Cold War. Now, the Czech Republic are free, and Prague is the base for our efforts to ensure other people can gain hope in other countries that they may be free too.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Revolution
The price of freedom, is eternal vigilance, and standing strong with our allies against oppression, to be willing, as JFK so eloquently said, 'to pay any price, bear any burden, support any friend, oppose any foe to ensure the survival and success of liberty."
In 1989, 21 years after Jan Palach's heroic sacrifice, 300,000 Czech people packed Wencelas Square in Prague, and standing together, demanded the end of Communism and in doing so won their freedom.
That's a history lesson worth remembering.
Travel Info
Radio Free Europe - http://www.rferl.org
Jan Palach, freedom fighter, - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Palach
The Velvet Revolution in Prague -
