Prague, Nov 1 (CTK) – Resistance fighter Jan Lukas, Charter 77 dissident manifesto signatory Hana Juptnerova and former political prisoner under the Czechoslovak Communist regime Pavel Horak received the Stories of Injustice Prizes on Wednesday, project spokesman Filip Sebek has told CTK.
This year, the 13th project Stories of Lawlessness. A Month of Film at Schools is devoted to the people who bravely defied the Communist totalitarian regime, Sebek said.
“This year, we want to tell pupils and students that not only oppression, but also an uninterrupted tradition of defiance exists in modern Czechoslovak history,” Karel Strachota, director of the educational programme One World At Schools prepared by the People in Need NGO, said.
“There are not many brave and determined people. However, this is another reason to pay attention and express respect to them. Thanks to them, too, we live in a democratic country,” Strachota said.
The project Stories of Injustice was founded in 2005. It is to describe the totalitarian era of oppression to the young.
It provides both documentary and feature films for the instruction of history and other school subjects.
Along with the projections, there are discussions with contemporaries, historians and film-makers.
The organisers also prepare seminars for teachers, exhibitions and publications of books.
The Stories of Injustice Prize for defiant attitudes and acts from the Communist era has been awarded since 2009.
The nominations are made by young people under 30 and the decisions are made by a student jury.
Lukas, 94, joined the resistance against the Nazi regime during World War Two. After the 1948 Communist coup, he was printing and distributing leaflets, for which he was sentenced to death, but the punishment was mitigated to a life sentence. He was only released from prison in 1964.
Juptnerova, 65, was a teacher. As a lone mother with two children, she signed the Charter 77 in 1979. She wanted to express her solidarity with the persecuted people and families of political prisoners. She spoke at the funeral of dissident Pavel Wonka in April 1988.
Horak, 63, produced and distributed leaflets about the death of Czechoslovak Nobel Prize Laureate for literature Jaroslav Seifert, poet and a signatory of the Charter 77, in 1986. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison for sedition.
The project includes a “selfie campaign” this year. In it, the young people photograph themselves with the veterans and the photos are then shared on social networks.
