57: Jan Palach

 

57 years ago today (January 16, 1969) 20 year old Czechoslovakian Student Jan Palach committed suicide by Self-Immolation in Wenceslaus Square in Prague, Czechoslovakia to protest the Soviet Union’s Invasion and crushing of the Prague Spring the year before.

Jan was born on August 11, 1949 in Všetaty, Czechoslovakia (today the Czech Republic.)

His Parents (His Mother Libuše and his Father Jozef) ran a Candy Shop from the 1930s, through the German Occupation of Czechoslovakia, until they were forced to close it by the Soviet and Czechoslovakian Communists in 1950.

His Father died when he was 13 years old.

In 1968 he attended the Philosophy Faculty at Charles University, where he studied History and Political Economics.

In the Summer of 1967 he worked on a Chicken Farm in the Soviet Union (to the Kazakhstan Soviet Socialist Republic) helping to fertilize the Steppes.

The Prague Spring (January 8-August 21, 1968) was a program by Czechoslovakian Communist Alexander Dubček was meant to bring Communist with a Human Face to Czechoslovakia with more freedom given to the Press, Speech and Travel.

On August 20, 1968 the Soviet Union (along with Warsaw Pact Members: Poland, Bulgaria and Hungary) invaded Czechoslovakia with 400,000 Troops to stop the Prague Spring.

137 Czechoslovakian Citizens were killed and another 500 injured.

300,000 Czechoslovakian Citizens fled the country to the West.

In October 1968 Jan was allowed to travel to the West (to France) for a short period before returning to Czechoslovakia.

Jan Palach was unique in that he was allowed to travel both to Communist Soviet Union and the West’s France.

He saw both sides of the Cold War while they were going on.

On January 16, 1969 Jan Palach set himself on fire in public to openly protest the Soviet Union’s Invasion and Occupation of Czechoslovakia and the end of the Prague Spring.

He sustained burns on 85% of his body.

The burning at the stake of Jan Hus in 1415 for his beliefs may have been an inspiration for Palach's Self-Immolation.

Jan died a few days later on January 19, 1969.

His Funeral turned into a major protest against the Soviet Occupation with tens of thousands of People attending.

He was initially buried in Olšany Cemetery in Prague, but his Grave became a National Shrine and Act of Defiance against the Communists so the Czechoslovakian Secret Police (the StB) exhumed his body at night on October 23, 1973, cremated his body and gave his ashes to his Mother.

After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, Jan Palach was commemorated in Prague by a bronze cross embedded at the spot where he fell outside the National Museum, as well as the naming of Jan Palach Square in his honor.

On October 25, 1990 (after Communism collapsed in Czechoslovakia) Jan Palach’s ashes were officially reinterned in the original Grave.

In 1991, Jan Palach was Posthumously awarded the Czech Order of Tomáš Garrig Masaryk, First Class.