Current Affairs Czechs commemorate 40th anniversary of death of Jan Palach
Friday marks the 40th anniversary of the self-immolation of Jan Palach, a 20-year old student from Prague’s Charles University. At the top of the city’s Wenceslas Square Palach doused himself in petrol and set himself alight, in a desperate attempt to rouse Czechs from what he saw as their increasing apathy in the wake of the Soviet-led invasion of the previous summer. He died three days later on January 19 1969, with his huge funeral becoming a protest against the occupation. Tomáš Halík, a Roman Catholic priest and head of the Czech Christian Academy, was a student at the time; he told me how this event affected his own life:
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