Speech of the Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek on the Occasion of Opening the Exhibition "People like Us" 5. 2. 2008

Speech of the Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek on the Occasion of Opening the Exhibition "People like Us" Tracing the Life Stories of People Marked by the Coup in 1948

Neither I nor overwhelming majority of citizens of this republic had been brought to this world yet when communists seized power after the coup sixty years ago. But we must not forget that era even in case there is nobody here who remembers those days. We must not forget that evil which got control over minds and hearts of those who sacrificed all to their absolute lust for power; their souls, their fellow citizens and, in the end, their friends and families. We must not forget those who were languishing in communist prisons, camps, on gibbets or when they were facing firing squads. We must not forget those who were martyred or shot down on the run or when crossing borders. We must not forget those who lost their lives, health or their close friends.

Here you can see 36 concrete human life stories. You can look into faces of those who were affected by the communist dictatorship. You can recall how brutal, dehumanized and absurd the regime, to which we allowed to command us over forty years, was. Nobody could avoid the communist fury; any group of inhabitants. Repressions affected the rich and the poor, the young and the old, intellectuals and workers, believers and infidels. When I was contemplating those photographs, when I was reading those human life stories, I realized how easily people loses freedom, and how difficult is to recover it.

I also realized how humble face the bravery has. How obvious the bravery is for those who are capable of it; even in times when it was not obvious to put up resistance to the regime; because it meant death or, in the better case, wrecked life. I also realized that, starting with Milada Horáková over Jan Palach to prisoners of conscience, the resistance to the totality has different displays but the same roots; like evil itself had different faces but the same hotbed. This is exactly the reason why it is necessary to examine the nature of totalitarian regimes such as Nazism and communism, so that we could describe mechanisms of their origin and activity, and thus avert recurrence. I also realized how sad are those, for whom power itself is both objective and means, how they are week in comparison with those who were kept in prisons, tormented and executed. Their glory means nothing now while those life stories are talking to us from these walls even after sixty years.

There are 36 heroes here - three dozens which represent hundreds, thousands and hundreds of thousand of those who did not allow anybody to break them by repressions, torment or death. Let us pay homage to heroes. Let us pay homage to them and let us never forget why they were fighting and what for what they were fighting. Let us pay homage to them and do not let us to fall into bondage. To live in freedom is not obvious, but freedom is a matter of a choice, in the end; in every time, under all circumstances. It is possible to be a free and a proud man even in a totalitarian camp. And it is also possible to live as a slaver of remorseless lust for power in parliamentary chairs. Those many people, who are represented here by several of them, managed to be free even in appalling conditions. They did not use the epoch as an excuse. We are enjoying far better conditions nowadays, and so, do not let us try to disappoint neither ourselves nor our ancestors, and in particular nor our children.