Unlike the graveyards and opulent synagogues of bygone times showing the horror of the Jewish situation in Prague during World War II, communism left a less obvious mark. Yet there were hints of their hardships, if you just knew where to look. As we first stepped off the tram and into Prague city, we were greeted by this strange, somber face staring back at us. We spotted Jan Palach's name a number of times throughout the city, like a repeating motif on the tragedy of communism. I was curious about this communist past that I knew almost nothing about - except that it was so awful that Jan had, in an act of ultimate protest, set himself on fire on the 19th January 1969.
Determined to broaden my horizons, we decided to visit the Communist museum of Prague. Ironically it was located within the same building as a casino, and next to a McDonald's. Very capitalist! It's a small, tucked away and dusty museum, which smells a bit funny but don't be put off -it's worth the trip. It's a rather eclectic collection from posters and statues to communist issued food. Set up by an American and a Czech, the museum is unapologetically biased. It is however fascinating in spite of - and even due to - this biased point of view. Words like 'evil, cruel and horrific' were bandied around freely. Although I had never been to a museum with such bias before, as the Czech private collector would have lived through such times, it was almost a testiment to how affected by Communism the nations people must be, even now.
The weapon featured below may or may not have been used to reinforce the communist positon, but regardless it's badass.
Another interesting fact I learned was why St. Wencslas square (pictured below) was such an un-square shape. More like an oblong with two wide avenues going through it, it was in fact modified and widened so that Soviet tanks could roll in en masse to keep the communist regime. Incidentally speaking of tanks, the first tank to enter St Wencslas square (a few years before to liberate the Czech people in World War II) was hailed as a national monument by the communists and given a place of honor in this square. After the fall of communism, the tank came to symbolise to the Czech people their oppression, and in 1991 an art student named David Cerny and his friends painted the tank pink in the middle of the night. Cerny was promptly arrested for 'public disturbances' and it was painted green again. This might have been the end of the story, except that fifteen members of the newly elected parliament painted the tank pink again in protest of Cerny's arrest! Cerny was released and the tank was demoted from it's status of national monument. After a few more rounds of being painted green and then mysteriously turning pink again soon after, the tank was removed permanently.
Perhaps the most interesting thing for me were the many propaganda posters tacked to the museum walls, the colours faded but the messages just as accusing. Although now they seem almost funny, their messages so blatantly full of lies and slander and anti-west sentiments, they were a product of their time, a time when these were the only news of the outside world people were able to get.
The poster on the right reads 'We are building Communism, we unmask the saboteurs and enemies of the Republic, we are strengthening the front of peace!' My favourite one however (apart from the hybrid Statue of Liberty-Spider-man poster below) was one showing American aeroplanes raining poison pellets from the sky onto potatos. Why this hatred of potatos you may ask? In fact, a completely natural disease struck the potato crops leading to severe economic problems - so as not to be blamed and use the opportunity to strengthen their own positon - the communist government spread posters blaming it on an attack by the dastardly Americans. With no other news outlet, people knew no better (and isn't that a bit terrifying?)
Communist chocolate! Huh, funny how much that sounds like consumerism.
Imagine a situation where anything you said, in passing, near an open window, to your neighbour, could be passed on as treason.The secret police were everywhere, and this narking was encouraged. One propaganda poster read 'No American agent shall get through our village! Help the National Safety Corps protect your United Agricultural Co-operative against Western Imperalists'. Or in other words, report anything and everything to the Secret Police and don't be surprised when people start disappearing. The photo below shows how a typical Secret Police interrogation room would look. A photo of Stalin glaring sternly at the world hung behind the desk. What really set me on edge however was the telephone on the desk - at random intervals it would ring, echoing around the bare room and making my fingers itch to answer it.
On the 20th anniversy of Jan Palach's death in 1989, protests in his memory and as a criticism against the Comminist regime began. These were harshly suppressed by the police, however this 'Palach week' is thought of as one of the catalysts in the dismantling of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia ten months later. As I admired the pure joy on the face of the woman at the moment of the deconstruction of the communist regime, I couldn't help but notice the man on the bottom left looked strangely like Kennith Brannigh.
Named the 'Velvet Revolution' due to it's non violent nature, protests culminating on the 24th of November 1989 caused all of the top communist officials to resign. Legislature was changed to no longer include Communist power monopoly, and on December 29, 1989, a new president was elected, the first non-communist government since 1948. As the saying goes, the fall of communism 'took ten years in Poland, ten months in Hungary, ten weeks in Eastern Germany, and ten days in Czechoslavakia'.
These statues commemorate the Communist oppression in the Czech Republic. Open to interpretation, I think it shows the people who disappeared, the unamed and forgotten taken by the secret police and quietly wiped from history. Not only this, but also how downtrodden the common people became under the communist regime, how they became less, slowly bowed, broken and withered away by their stifling oppression.
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