Jan palach and the fanal from wenzelsplatz never love ingo cesaro loose
Of course the synagogue in kronach is a fitting place for cesaro’s jan palach project to be presented for the first time. The actresses ulrike mahr and lucie lechner (munich) were also present. Both staged the bilingual palach poems. Ute fischer peterson, who was responsible for the musical interjections, offered the listeners an opportunity to reflect on what they had heard during the breaks between speeches.
No easy stuff, this fanal of jan palach, who turned out to be torch number one on 16. January 1969 on the wenzelsplatz and on 19. January died of the consequences of severe burns.
After welcoming the guests and introducing the artists involved, cesaro talked about the local partnership for democracy "demokratie leben" in the district of kronach, which made this literary project possible. Among the guests he was able to bury sabine nachtrab, who is in charge of the coordination office at the VHS.
Dramatic end
Warsaw pact tanks crushed the democracy movement known as "prague spring" in august 1968, down. Cesaro referred to the action program of the CP of april 1968, where the new thinking was written down. It was about the right of assembly, freedom of the press and the abolition of censorship. The burgers could travel abroad.
Before that, in june 1968, the "manifesto of a thousand words" was published published by ludvik vaculik. Dubcek arrested and deported to moscow. There, together with ludvic svoboda, he signed the "moscow protocol". The idea of "socialism with a human face is rolled down by tanks. Gustav husak takes over the KP presidium. There are slight improvements.
Now lucie lechner and ulrike mahr recited the poems "dein herz verbrannt nicht" (your heart is not burned) by ludvik vaculik, "an unknown hand and "on the wenzelsplatz alternately in czech and german. Impressive the soft voice of lechner. You could see the emotion in both of them, because ulrike mahr still noticed how much the poems had impressed her. And lucie lechner felt honored to be allowed to participate in this jan palach project.
In the second part, cesaro went into the fanal. On thursday, the 16. January 1969, around 3 p.M., jan palach put down his briefcase, took off his coat and doused himself with the contents of a can of gasoline, and toasted himself. Like a torch he ran across the wenzel square. If a tram conductor hadn’t had the presence of mind to throw his coat over jan palach, he would have died immediately. Although 85 percent of his skin was burned, jan palach did not die until the 19th. January 1969. Again and again he emphasized that he was not a suicidal person. Mountains of letters and cards reached the hospital. The doctor jarolslava moserova read many to him. Again and again jan palach asked if the government had already reacted. He is also known for his saying, handed down by his student leader lubos holecek: "I expected to survive, but I did not rule out death."
The next poems were "heavy dreams", "loud teeth rattling" and "silence and in the second block "a nightmare", "we kept our distance" and "the calculation did not work out.
Cesaro’s entanglements
Cesaro had started writing poems about it in january 1969, but at first he only managed one line: "the sons sacrifice themselves for the future of their fathers". There is no sequence for the poems. And in conversation with his friend and translator josef hrubý he always talked about how the poems sounded in czech. 1999 cesaro was invited to read at the prague p.E.N. Invited. There he read the jan palach cycle in german and josef hrubý the czech version. The czech colleagues did not agree with the topic, because at that time jan palach was still an unperson.
During the discussion that followed, the bulgarian doctor maria vojtova revealed herself as the author of the book "porc jsem nemluvila", which means: "why i kept silent for so long" heibt. For three years she had been afraid to publish this book, because she had been looking after jan palach for three days when he died as an assistant physician in the hospital. She was very excited and fell on the way home, fell into a coma and died after 14 days. The czech colleagues accused cesaro of being responsible for the doctor’s death. Only many months later this accusation was dropped.
At the end ulrike mahr and lucie lechner read the poems "in these mad times" and "love for his people. And finally the sentence in czech and german: "your heart did not burn, jan palach!"
"You have shown your colors with your visit today", said cesaro at the end and that he was still up to his neck in this project and that today’s event should free him from it a little bit. In the end he quoted friedrich bonhoeffer: "we must grasp the spokes of the wheel ourselves".
