8.3.2.3. End of War Celebrations

On Thursday, people in the Czech republic commemorated the 52nd anniversary of the end of WWII in Europe. They paid tribute to victims of war and fascism by laying wreaths and flowers at their monuments. Alena Skodova reports:

The anti-fascist resistance movement fighters were remembered in Prague by Deputy Foreign Minister Dagmar Demlova. At a meeting with representatives of the Czech Freedom Fighters' Union, Demlova warned against distinguishing on what war front Czech soldiers lost their lives. The festive meeting was attended - along with several hundred members of the Freedom Fighters' Union - by representatives of the Czech Army Supreme Command and the French and Ukrainian embassies. In Brno, mayor Dagmar Lastovecka and the Russian General Consul Oleg Lushnikov laid bouquets of flowers at a former fascist execution site and the Victory memorial in the town. Also present were representatives of the town, political parties, the Confederation of Political Prisoners, the Czech Freedom Fighters' Union and Brno students. In Teplice, senator Jaroslav Musial, representatives of the Teplice region and citizens from the nearby town of Krupka commemorated the victims of the so-called "Death March" in April 1945 during which 313 people died.

From the French town of Frameries the 68 year old Marie-Louise Bienfait-Palmer, whose husband is buried here, arrived in Krupka. In a chapel belonging to the local Religious Secondary School Bohosudov, ten church choirs from Northern Bohemia and the towns of Pardubice and Kladno, sang at the second Ecumenical Festival of choirs called Bohosudov 97. Military history fans could see a real episode from the end of WWII between Prague and the East Bohemian village of Velichovky, where some 200 men in German and US army uniforms imitated a battle with the accompaniment of machine and automatic guns, explosives and signal rockets, and even the groaning of the wounded. © Copyright 1997 Radio Prague All Rights Reserved