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Plzeň stages Freedom Fest as homage to Western liberators

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Plzen, West Bohemia, May 5 (CTK) – The four-day Freedom Fest, an annual event in commemoration of the liberation of Plzen by the U.S. army in 1945, started by the reading of Holocaust victims’ names in the centre of the town on Thursday.

The day of remembrance of Holocaust victims, Yom HaShoah, is a novelty of the celebrations, as is the planned ride of war veterans and a rich cultural programme in a new cultural centre, Plzen Deputy Mayor Martin Baxa told CTK.

The town hall has organised the celebrations as a homage paid to the war veterans who liberated Plzen, the centre of west Bohemia, 71 years ago.

Seven war veterans have come from the USA this time, and six from Belgium.

“Yom HaShoah…has taken place in Plzen for the first time. It is important to remember the huge joy at the liberation, but also the preceding dark events,” Baxa said.

Dozens of people read the names of the Jews from Plzen and its surroundings, who left in three transports for Terezin in January 1942.

In Terezin (Theresienstadt, north Bohemia), the Nazis established a Jewish ghetto whose inmates were gradually transported to concentration and extermination camps.

Of Plzen’s Jewish community, almost 3,000 people perished in Nazi concentration camps. Only some 100 Jews returned home, the Plzen Jewish Community chairwoman Eva Stixova said.

The Freedom Fest will run through May 8.

It will offer commemorative meetings, historical military camps, military presentations, concerts, exhibitions, a festival of U.S. cuisine and meetings with veterans.

A Ride of Freedom, including historical Jeeps with war veterans, will cross the town centre on May 7.

For the first time after 20 years, the main meeting will not be held at the Thanks, America! monument, because the town had recently removed it due to a bad technical condition and its replica is yet to be built.

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