Prague, Sept 23 (CTK) – The names of the Catholic priests imprisoned or murdered during World War Two will be read publicly within the project Our Shepherds 1938-1945 in 70 places across the Czech Republic, deputy Miroslav Kalousek (TOP 09), who has initiated the project, told journalists Wednesday.
The project, to be held under the auspices of Prague Archbishop Cardinal Dominik Duka, will take place on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War Two in Europe and Czech Statehood Day.
September 28 is St Wenceslas Day and Czech Statehood Day, a national holiday commemorating the death anniversary of the 10th-century prince and patron saint of Bohemia.
As the list of over 300 persons is not yet final, organisers have asked the public to add more names, Kalousek said.
He said he had been inspired by the book And Who Will Kill You by Catholic priest Bedrich Hoffmann that includes a list of the priests who were imprisoned and died in the concentration camp Dachau.
“If so many priests died in Dachau, they must have died in other camps, too,” Kalousek said.
“I am glad that the names of the priests who were imprisoned or died during World War Two will be heard in over 70 places of our country because we cannot forget their attitude to our homeland,” Duka said.
Hoffmann’s list was taken up by volunteers from the Loucka-Pearl Harbor Military Museum Association. Along with it, they formed the Saint Wenceslas list. It includes further persecuted, imprisoned and executed priests from other concentration camps.
The volunteers are still adding new names to it.
Hoffmann’s work is of the same importance as the world-known Auschwitz Report by Holocaust survivors Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, Josef Korenek, from the museum, said.
At present, there are 325 persons on the list, while the process of their beatification is underway with ten of them.
“The bloody victims of Nazism and of Communism include Cardinal Stepan Trochta, Cardinal Josef Beran, Prague Augustinian prior Augustin Frantisek Schubert and other names,” Korenek said.
Korenek said the public reading of the names of war victims from among the clergy should become a tradition.
