Credit: Ali Sahib, Chronicle.lu

On Thursday 16 January 2025, a commemorative event was held at the Square Palach, situated just beside the Place d'Armes in Luxembourg city centre.

The solemn event was a commemoration on the occasion of the 56th anniversary of Jan Palach's sacrifice. Jan Palach, a student of the Faculty of Arts at Charles University, set himself alight on Wenceslas Square in Prague 56 years ago on 16 January 1969. Three days later he died of his injuries in hospital. His act symbolised a protest against the political developments in Czechoslovakia after the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops in August 1968 with the aim of awakening the Czech nation from its indifference.

Palach's act was intended to awaken the nation from its lethargy and to arouse it to resistance against the emerging normalisation. "To protest against everything that was happening here. Against the lack of freedom of speech and the press. Tell everyone," Jan Palach described the reasons for his act to a nurse in the hospital where he was taken with severe burns. Another student, Jan Zajíc, burned himself to death in Prague on 25 February 1969 in protest against normalisation, following Palach's example.

Talking with Chronicle.lu, the Czech Ambassador to Luxembourg, Vladimír Bärtl, said: "Jan Palach decided to do what he did because he wanted to awaken a nation that was slowly sinking into indifference after the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. We are grateful that Luxembourg was the first European state to immortalise Palach's sacrifice. On the anniversary in January, we traditionally commemorate Palach with representatives of the Ville de Luxembourg, the city that named a square after the heroic student."

He added: "Today, the motive for his deed is remembered in the context of Ukraine's struggle against the same aggressor that invaded Czechoslovakia more than 50 years ago. Even today, some people have become lethargic in the face of the continuing danger. That is why the Confrérie du chant traditionnel decided to sing the Ukrainian anthem alongside the Czech anthem, together with the Ukrainian soloist Mrs Olena Afanasyeva (whose close relative was killed in the war last Sunday), and Dati drumul la cer, a composition by the youngest political prisoner in Romania during the Russian-installed communist regime."