CU opens exihibition ‘Novembers’ ****************************************************************************************** * ****************************************************************************************** In the Carolinum building of the Charles University, exhibition ‘Listopady/Novembers’ was on November 17, 2014. The opening was attended by presidents of five Central European stat probably the largest exhibition organised to commemorate this years’ anniversary of the st focuses not only one the Velvet Revolution and November 1939 but also on wartime events wh declaration of International Students’ Day and traces the transformation of this holiday d the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. On November 17, 1939, after the funeral of the medical student Jan Opletal and anti-German universities were closed, nine student representatives executed, and over one thousand stu a concentration camp. Yet even so, hundreds of university students managed to leave the co Czechoslovak army abroad, and eventually make sure that November 17 was declared an Intern Day and celebrated world-wide. “We want to present not only the dramatic wartime events but also the way November 17 had instrument of diplomacy and propaganda. Czechoslovak students played a crucial role in thi during the war, November 17 was commemorated in all inhabited continents,” explains Petr C the Archive of the Charles University and one of the authors of the exhibition. This is also why after the war, international student congresses were meeting in Prague an created International Union of Students established its headquarters in the Czechoslovak c 1948 communist takeover, the Union became politicised and Western organisations withdrew t “During the following forty years, the International Students’ Day was misused and misappr communist regime. Only on the 50th anniversary, in November 1989, it was adopted by indepe students and thanks to them, the holiday gained a new meaning,” says the historian Jakub J author of the exhibition. The exhibition also presents the lives of people who in the past 75 years experienced and November 17 as demonstrating students, prisoners of concentration camps and communist pris soldiers abroad, or members of university management. A substantial part of the exhibition consists of contemporary radio and television broadca managed to acquire, for example, speeches of Emil Hácha and Edvard Beneš which immediately execution of student leaders and the closing of universities. The two speeches have a comp charge: the first is resigned and appeasing, the other decisive and rousing,” adds Jakub J Visitors of the exhibition will be able to listen to unique recordings of radio plays abou 17 which were created in England by Czechoslovak students during the war. “Some of them ar ridiculously theatrical but I suppose that goes with the high emotions of the wartime,” cl Cajthaml. The exhibition also includes video recordings from November 1989 and a recording of Radio programme which first broadcast information about the ‘dead student’ from Národní třída. ****************************************************************************************** * Listopady/Novembers ****************************************************************************************** Charles University Exhibition on the Occasion of November 17 1939 and 1989 Carolinum (the chodba) Ovocný trh 3, Prague 1 17. 11. 2014 – 28. 2. 2015 Open daily 10am–6pm ( on November 17 since 3pm) Entry free Exhibition is presented in Czech and English.