Čeština
“This is not about putting on a display. First and foremost, it is about realising what history has been capable of doing. Although ‘history’ is not quite the right word. Ultimately, it is human beings who are responsible for both happiness and misery,” said Jiřík.
The monumental memorial, located along a former border patrol track, was created for the town by academic sculptor Antonín Kašpar in collaboration with architect Jaroslav Šusta.
“The central idea behind the memorial is broken chains. We tried to capture the moment experienced by the people whose names are written here, just before their deaths. They had made the decision to act and, in a sense, experienced freedom, even if only for a brief moment. Every name inscribed here represents the personal tragedy of an individual and, of course, their family,” Kašpar explained.
The unveiling ceremony was attended by representatives of the Cheb town council, Josef Pavel, Governor of the Karlovy Vary Region, and Jiří Dienstbier, the first foreign minister after the fall of the communist regime.
“The fundamental point is that there was a border lined with barbed wire and machine-gun towers, and that people were prevented from moving freely across it. That is what matters. Whether someone was one kind of person or another, or whether they exploited or abused the situation—which may have happened—is no argument against erecting a monument that commemorates what took place here. What matters is remembering those events, not judging people according to whether they attempted to cross the border for legitimate reasons or, as some claim, in the service of a foreign power,” Dienstbier said.
The memorial lists the names of 82 people who were shot, died on electrified fencing or lost their lives in other ways along the western border between 1948 and 1981. Most of the victims died in the first years after the Communists came to power.
“It is clear that the situation in 1948 and 1949 was very different from that in 1981. By then, our citizens had at least some opportunity to travel abroad, so the number of deaths was considerably lower. Remember that in 1948, even if passports existed, they were confiscated from people. Crossing the border was therefore the only way to reach the West. That is why the number of victims was so high up to 1952. Later came a period when the border was virtually impassable because the technical barriers built here were almost hellishly effective. Our entire border security system was based on the Soviet model. It is no coincidence that Stalinism left us with this ugly legacy,” Jiřík added.
“I personally had approximately 150 victims in my records, some of whom I later excluded for various reasons. The process began with cooperation with the Office for the Documentation and Investigation of the Crimes of Communism, which provided the initial information. But at least one further critical review was necessary. I visited archives in Prague and Brno-Kanice, including those of the Ministry of the Interior, to verify the information. Afterwards, the director of the Institute of Contemporary History reviewed my work to check whether I had made any mistakes. Every error would have undermined the memorial. When you study dozens of cases ending in tragedy, you begin to understand the dignity of human life and what it means to hold that dignity in contempt,” Jiřík explained.
At the unveiling ceremony, approximately twenty people, mostly former members of the communist border guard, protested against the memorial.
“Of course, you can never get every name exactly right, but I believe the memorial is still justified. Even those people said to have been included wrongly were trying to cross the border—that is, to do something they were entitled to do under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Declaration was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948,” Dienstbier said.
“I believe everyone has the right to their own opinion. However, that opinion should be based on objective facts, not on the labelling and terminology that were common under the previous regime, such as ‘reactionary’ or ‘opportunist’. People often claim that the victims were agents of the American intelligence service. In at least two cases, that was indeed true, but others are labelled as agents even though they were not. The fact that violence was sometimes used is understandable: violence breeds violence. Not everyone is willing to walk like cattle to their own execution,” Jiřík said.
The Memorial to the Victims of the Iron Curtain near Cheb was unveiled on the anniversary of the execution of Milada Horáková, a Czechoslovak National Socialist politician, on 27 June 1950. The date is commemorated as the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Communist Regime.