Jan Opletal

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Jan Opletal ( January 1, 1915 in Lhota nad Moravou , Austria-Hungary - November 11, 1939 in Prague ) was a Czechoslovak medical student from Charles University in Prague who was shot and seriously injured during a resistance demonstration on Czechoslovak Independence Day , October 28, 1939 was injured. He passed away two weeks later. Jan Opletal is considered a symbol of the Czech resistance against National Socialism .

Life

Opletal comes from a modest background. He was born in Lhota nad Moravou , a small town near Náklo in northern Moravia, on New Year's Day in 1915. He was the eighth child in the family of Anna and Štěpán Opletal. His parents gave the date of birth December 31, 1914, so that he could start school a year earlier. Opletal attended the primary school in Náklo and then for one year the community school in Štěpánov u Olomouce . He was actually supposed to begin an apprenticeship in the Sigmund brothers' pump factory in Lutín , but was accepted into the high school in Litovel in 1926 on the recommendation of his teachers, who recognized his intelligence and discipline . He joined the Sokol gymnastics movement and also used their educational opportunities. He graduated from high school in 1934 with distinction. After that, he wanted to be a pilot and competed in the flight school of Prostějov . However , he was not admitted due to lack of eyesight . He then attended the school for reserve officers in Hranice na Moravě and completed military service in a cavalry barracks.

In the winter semester of 1936/1937 he began studying medicine at Charles University in Prague.

Before the anniversary of Czechoslovak independence on October 28, 1939, Jan Opletal and other medical students issued leaflets calling for resistance to the German occupation. Demonstrations by the Czech population and strikes took place throughout the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia . In Prague, more and more people gathered during the day, sang the national anthem, demanded the return of Edvard Beneš and chanted anti-German slogans. Some, including many students, vandalized the shop windows of German shops. Since the Czech police, who sympathized with the demonstrators, did not intervene, German plainclothes police began shooting into the crowd. The worker Václav Sedláček was shot and Jan Opletal was seriously injured. Opletal succumbed to his injury on November 11, 1939.

Jan Opletal's funeral on November 16, 1939 in Náklo

On November 15, 1939, he was laid out and driven through Prague. More than 3000 students were present at the memorial event at the Institute for Pathology and in the adjoining chapel. Hundreds of students then followed his coffin and more and more residents joined. When his coffin was brought to the train station for transport to his homeland, to Náklo in Moravia, the crowd, which had now grown to thousands, sang the Czech anthem . When the funeral procession reached Karlsplatz , there were arguments with the Czech police, so that the students withdrew to the building of the Technical University. They were only allowed to leave this under supervision in small groups, which later reunited in a procession that tried to break through the city center.

The reaction of the German occupiers to this was the special action in Prague on November 17, 1939. 1850 students were arrested and nine student leaders were executed without trial, including František Skorkovský . 1200 Czech students were interned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp , and all Czech universities were closed.

The murder of Jan Opletal and the subsequent closure of Prague University led to solidarity demonstrations at the University of Belgrade on November 18, 1939.

Velvet revolution

Demonstration on Wenceslas Square, November 1989

On November 16 and 17, 1989 - on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Special Action Prague - demonstrations took place in Bratislava and Prague, which finally led to the Velvet Revolution and on December 29, 1989 to the election of Václav Havel as President. The Prague demonstrators chose the same route as the funeral procession for Jan Opletal 50 years earlier: from Albertov via Národní třída to Wenceslas Square .

Award

Commemoration

In the Czech Republic , numerous streets are named after Opletal, including in Brno , Jablonec nad Nisou , Most , Olomouc , Poděbrady , Prague and Řevnice . The high school in Litovel , which he attended, bears his name today. There are also a number of monuments that commemorate him, such as B. a memorial stone in the forest west of Březina u Křtin .

Since 1941, the events of November 17, 1939 have been commemorated with International Students' Day . On the occasion of this international student day, the European Students' Union awards a Jan Opletal Prize .

In 1989 and 2015, two special stamps were issued in memory of Jan Opletal.

In August 2014, an exhibition in Prague commemorated Jan Opletal and the closure of Czech universities.

  • Tomb for Jan Opletal in Náklo

  • Bust of Jan Opletal in front of the Jana Opletala grammar school in Litovel

  • Memorial plaque at the Jana Opletala grammar school

  • Memorial plaque for Jan Opletal and Václav Sedláček in Prague

  • The Opletalova Street in the New Town

  • The Opletalova street in Brno, in the background, the Constitutional Court

literature

Web links

Commons : Jan Opletal  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Brian Kenety: The 17th of November: Remembering Jan Opletal, martyr of an occupied nation , Radio Praha, November 17, 2005
  2. ↑ Litovelské Pomoraví: Opletal Jan - První studentská oběť nacismu v Československu , accessed on June 12, 2016.
  3. ^ Město Litovel: Student Jan Opletal , accessed on June 12, 2016.
  4. ^ Peter Demetz : Prague in Danger: The Years of German Occupation, 1939–45: Memories and History, Terror and Resistance, Theater and Jazz, Film and Poetry, Politics and War . Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York City 2008, ISBN 978-0-374-28126-7 , p. 79
  5. ^ A b Peter Demetz : Prague in Danger: The Years of German Occupation, 1939–45: Memories and History, Terror and Resistance, Theater and Jazz, Film and Poetry, Politics and War . Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York City 2008, ISBN 978-0-374-28126-7 , p. 80
  6. ↑ Studentské oběti roku 1939 , in Historický Kaleidoskop, November 17, 2014
  7. ↑ Detlef Brandes : The Czechs under German protectorate. Part I. Occupation policy, collaboration and resistance in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia until Heydrich's death (1939–1942) . Oldenbourg, Munich / Vienna 1969, ISBN 3-486-43041-6 , p. 93. (The literature available to Brandes, with the state of knowledge from 1946, does not differentiate between Oranienburg and Sachsenhausen).
  8. ↑ More Czechs shot . New York Times, November 19, 1939
  9. ↑ In his essay Velvet Revolution in past and future has Timothy Garton Ash all nonviolent revolutions of the Portuguese Carnation Revolution designated 1974 as from velvet revolution and this attribute attributed to future non-violent revolutions. Timothy Garton Ash, Velvet Revolution Past and Future , in: Turn of the Century. World Political Considerations 2000–2010, Munich 2010, pp. 87–100.
  10. ^ Awarded title post hum - in the running text on the website of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic (Ministerstvo průmyslu a obchodu CR) accessed on July 2, 2016
  11. ^ Prague Castel: List of Honored , President of the Czech Republic, First Class
  12. ^ The International Day of Students: Website homepage , accessed May 17, 2016.
  13. ↑ European Students 'Union: SKRVS: Awarding the Jan Opletal Prize to mark the International Students' Day , accessed on May 17, 2016.
  14. ↑ Colnect: Stamp catalog: Stamp ›Jan Opletal (1915–1939) , accessed on May 15, 2016
  15. ↑ 2015 commemorative stamp - image on the website of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic (Ministerstvo průmyslu a obchodu CR), accessed on June 9, 2016
  16. ↑ Nesmíme zapomenout: Jan Opletal a další oběti listopadu 1939: nacistická perzekuce českých studentů během druhé stvětové války , August 25, 2014, accessed on January 6, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Opletal, Jan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czechoslovak medical student, victim of National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Lhota nad Moravou , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH November 11, 1939
Place of death Prague