Day88 26th Jul Prague
We arrived last night after a day on a train from Budapest. Always a lovely gentle way to travel. Grabbed an Uber and settled into our beautifully appointed studio apartment. Wandered around the neighbourhood and settled into a local for pub grub.
Late start next day and headed for the Mucha Museum, which was made complicated by my never-ending battle with Google maps.
Mel is a Mucha fan and told me that there was no share house in the 60s/70s that didn’t have a Mucha poster hanging on the wall. So I went in not knowing much about him but recognised the posters that were a significant part of his early however as we found out there was much more to him than his posters. He was a Czech patriot and produced a major ode to Slavic History in the form of twenty huge canvasses which are apparently stored away somewhere. When asked about it, a guide became very distressed talking about it, because apparently, it is a hot topic. The paintings have toured Japan but there are apparently no plans to exhibit them in Prague anytime soon. The museum was a really nice representation of his work including an informative short film. Seeing his work here inspired us to go to the Municipal House to see more of his work.
Using our 72-hour pass we then headed to the National Memorial to the Heroes of the Heydrich Terror. The history addict in me was attracted to this having read “HHhH” about Heydrich’s assassination. There are also several movies made about it. The major point to make is that the museum is housed in a crypt below a church where the conspirators hid after the assassination attempt.
It consists of two parts one is a room with wall panels detailing the origins of “Operation Anthropoid ” as it was called. And the other the crypt itself with shelving that used to hold coffins. The entrance to the latter is through a large iron curved door that you have to push to enter. It is meant to signify a move from the living to the dead and reverse. There is a small memorial to the men who died in here and the church above. They had hidden here, after the assassination attempt, were betrayed by an informer and either committed suicide or succumbed to their wounds.
The Czech government has gone to great lengths in preserving and promoting this site. It is free to enter and they have produced an extensive handbook and map. The map shows where the conspirators hid and where the rest of their supporters were rounded up and killed. It states quite clearly that “This day is still one of the most memorable days in Czech history”. As a human, I was saddened by the visit as I keep being reminded that no one wins in war-cliched but true. As a history buff, I was engaged by the story and tried to understand why it is so important to the Czechs to maintain and promote the site. When learning the whole story you realise that in the late thirties they were ignored by the major powers and a large portion of their country was given away to Germany. Operation Anthropoid was a Czech owned initiative to rid themselves of a hated dictator and to re-establish their own national identity.
After all this history we repaired to a local pub for a few beers and dinner.
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