ANNIVERSARY: Liberation – The Invisible Dog

In fact, we celebrate liberation only in the western part of the republic. Elsewhere, just a rather embarrassing reminder, moreover, sometimes determined by political opinions. The current reality of the world distorts our hieratic memory too much. Liberation from what? Liberation from the monstrous regime introduced by the Germans, who are today an example of democracy? The liberation of the troops of a state that no longer exists today, but in whose army there were Ukrainians, Belarusians, Uzbeks, Tajiks and many others. And of course the Russians, those who today are considered barbarians and bearers of evil, just as the Germans were considered years ago?

To identify a nation with a ruling regime was as foolish eighty years ago as it is today. Prime Minister Fiala lamented that he had seen Russian tanks in the streets of our cities and that he did not want to experience that again. I saw Russian tanks in our streets twice and I received them with completely different feelings. Not just me, but them too. They always considered themselves liberators, the first time they were greeted with thanks, the second time as hateful occupiers, and people also showed their hatred to them. But what did the boys in those armor have to do with the regime they were part of?

Are we forgetting the facts or are we losing our historical memory? When I recently expressed my embarrassment on social media over the fact that President Eduard Beneš and “standing president” Emil Hácha are published in our House of Representatives, some of the debaters claimed that it was all right, that Hácha actually took office involuntarily, moreover under coercion and prevented the worst. Really? But I have a good memory and I remember well the look on my parents’ faces when they heard that the state president had condemned the assassination of Heydrich, attended his funeral in Berlin and personally wished Hitler a happy birthday.

Maybe we should be more conciliatory towards those historical figures. They were never gray and white, it was a difficult time and no one would probably want to make decisions in their place. Maybe after years we could learn to forgive. I don’t know, but I still can’t imagine that there would be a portrait of Marshal Petain in the building of the National Assembly of the French Republic or a portrait of V. Quisling in the building of the Norwegian Parliament. It’s about whether we want to remember how it really was, or whether we just don’t care anymore. But living without a real historical memory, which can be different from the current state of political thinking, is very dangerous for the fate of the nation. However, if we value our freedom, we should not forget how those who behaved towards it and who laid down their lives for the preservation of our freedom.

So how to celebrate today? Probably just the memory of those who gave their lives for our future life, however cliche it sounds. Soviet soldiers did not bring communism to us. Let’s not forget that during the First Republic, the Communist Party was one of the strongest political parties in our country and, compared to the population, there were more members of this party than in the USSR. And this party overwhelmingly won the free elections of 1946. Let’s forget about Putin or Trump at this moment, let’s forget where the liberators came to us from, whether from Texas, Florida, or perhaps from Sverdlovsk or Dušamba. He deserves it. Let us remember what would have happened to our lives if they had not come to us. And would we have any lives at all…

LN 7.5, the author is an ombudsman