Prague, Sept 26 (CTK) – The Czech ethical commission for anti-communist resistance bestowed commemorative decrees and badges on 11 resistance fighters on Tuesday, appreciating their membership in anti-communist groups, help to the persecuted, spreading of flyers and destruction of symbols of totalitarianism.
Culture Minister Daniel Herman (Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL) said the awarded succeeded in achieving freedom of Czech society.
“Now it is up to us to defend this great gift,” he said.
Many of those awarded had previously also joined the anti-Nazi resistance movement.
Many were imprisoned for their anti-communist positions and actions.
The award went in memoriam to Jan Prikryl, a member of a resistance group whom the communist patrols shot dead in July 1949 when he was attempting to cross the Czech-German border.
Another awarded man, Jaromir Kampas, ended in a communist prison for a similar attempt.
Vladimir Pavlu was awarded in memoriam for his active membership in an anti-communist group.
Adolf Zerdik was awarded in memoriam for his active membership of the Student Christian Legion.
Jaroslav Melichar was awarded for helping and supporting a member of an anti-communist group.
The award also went to Ludmila Hermanova for her aid to Lumir Pavlik, a U.S. intelligence service agent, in 1956, to Ivan Pokorny for spreading the information he heard on the Voice of America foreign-based democratic radio, and to Pavel Voticky for publicly presenting his own anti-communist poster in 1986 and for destroying two Soviet flags, for which he was sentenced to eight months in prison.
Milan Prochazka was awarded for his active membership of an anti-communist group, and Jiri Novak for having openly shown his anti-communist views, for which he was sentenced to 1.5 years in jail.
The last awarded man, Stanislav Smic, was sentenced by the communists to 12 years in prison for having hidden a collaborator of a foreign intelligence service.
The ethical commission’s main task is to reassess the cases of people whom the Interior Ministry refused to grant the status of anti-communist fighter. It has complied with 56 applications out of several hundreds addressed to it so far.
