The Gate of Infinity On March 9th 2015 Czech sculptor/artist Aleš Veselý unveiled a piece of work called, in Czech, “Brána nenávratna”. It literally translates as The Gate of No Return but it seems to be widely known as The Gate of Infinity. On this post I’ll tell you where it is, the inspiration behind … Read More
Ryszard Siwiec Memorial There is a memorial in Prague to a man who protested about the Communist Totalitarian regime and specifically the August 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. A man called Ryszard Siwiec who died for his cause. A “grey man” as he described himself. The thing is….. he wasn’t Czech and he didn’t die in … Read More
Plague Columns You’ll walk past these as you wander through Czech towns and cities. Here I’ll point out the two Prague Plague Columns related to the Bubonic Plague outbreak in the early 18th Century. They will have a strong religious connection and are giving thanks for the ending of a bad period of suffering. In … Read More
Return of the Stones Memorial In January 2019 I first became aware that Jewish gravestones had been cut up and made into cobble stones for use in city streets during the communist era. I wrote about this on the Walking on Gravestones post. I’d heard that the Jewish community had an agreement with the City … Read More
The Žižkov Old Jewish Cemetery 1680-1890 Prague guidebooks will tell you that the Old Jewish Cemetery in Josefov closed in November 1787. That’s correct, but what they often don’t tell you is what happened next and how the Jewish community chose the place that took over burials. This would be the Žižkov Jewish Cemetery often … Read More
The Winged Lion On one side of the Lesser Town is an area called Klárov. It has a small open area of ground with two monuments dedicated to World War Two. One of them is the Winged Lion. The Winged Lion is specifically dedicated to 2513 Czechs and Slovaks who fought as pilots and air … Read More
Memorials – The Prague Castle Obelisk Consider that the original idea for a simple memorial plaque to Czechs and Slovaks killed in World War One would end up with hundreds of tons of granite being mined, the military involved in transporting different versions and the final version installed in a different place than originally intended. … Read More
Memorial to the Victims of Collectivisation When you take individual private companies and bring them under State control that’s called Nationalisation. When you take an entire sector of production under State control that’s called Collectivisation. In post-1948 Czechoslovakia the theory for agriculture was that as the State now owned the company or the land it … Read More
WW2 Memorials – Josef Skalda There are thousands of memorials in the city and a large number relate to events and characters of World War Two. As I was passing this particular memorial I happened to notice that there was a lot of detail with a word that I had never seen before – SŤAT. … Read More
Memorial to Eleven Ice Hockey Players Surely one of the strangest memorials to the communist era is at Pšstrossova 24 in the New Town. It states that eleven ice hockey players were arrested in March 1950 and sent to prison. In fact several of these guys were either Olympic silver medallists in 1948 and/or ice … Read More