Showing posts with label Milada Horakova. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Milada Horakova. Show all posts

Saturday 27 June 2015

Freedom is hard won, but easily lost.


It's late in the evening and I should be in bed, but I realize that this is an important day and I really should write a blog post.

The 27th June is a day when the Czechs remember the victims of communism. Earlier this year I watched as a group of tourists posed in front of this memorial without any regard to what it means. The memorial is to those victims - the statues are symbolically disappearing, parts are missing. That is what political imprisonment does to its victims. You cease to exist as people. They break you down. In the end you do not get a proper grave. Your family has nowhere to grieve, hence the need for such a memorial.

 I watched but I did not do anything to stop the idiots gallivanting in front the disappearing men. My inaction was a sign perhaps that in similar circumstances I would be one of the silent majority and not one of the few that stands up for freedom.

We remember on this day of all days, because on 27th June 1950 after an infamous show trial Czechoslovak politician Milada Horakova was hung. Despite having had a confession tortured out of her, this unbelievably brave lady stood head held high in the court and rebutted her accusers.

Watch this video to hear the story of her trial.


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