11/15/1939 Funeral of Jan Opletal

Jan Opletal was shot dead by a German police force during a demonstration in October 1939. His funeral turned into a large student demonstration against Nazi arbitrariness, for which the students subsequently paid a cruel tax. Some were executed, others were taken to a concentration camp.

The anniversary of the founding of the republic, October 28, was the reason for demonstrations against the occupation by the Czech side in 1939. German police also dispersed the protesters by shooting. She hit two young men, who eventually succumbed to their injuries. One of them was a baker's assistant Otakar Sedláček, the other a medical student Jan Opletal.

He died on November 11, and his funeral took place five days later. The news of Jan Opletal 's death spread not only among the students of Hlávka's dormitory, but soon the whole of Prague and then the whole country talked about it.

"It turned into a big student demonstration against Nazi arbitrariness. Opletal's coffin was carried by a student from Hlav's Chapel to Albertov, headed by the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine František Hájek, "describe the funeral of Milan Syruček and Josef Svoboda in the book Why the Insignia of Charles University Disappeared - 70 Years

When they placed the coffin in a hearse, they sang the entire Czechoslovak anthem, even though at that time Slovakia was already an independent state. The students parted, but instead continued to demonstrate in the streets of Prague - on Charles Square, in Jungmann, on Národní třída and in front of the Faculty of Law, where SS and police units arrested the first fifteen students.

The demonstration did not go unanswered in the highest political circles in Berlin. It was a punishment for rebellious Czech students almost all day. "It was decided to close Czech universities and punish student officials in an exemplary manner. Six of them were arrested directly at the headquarters of the Union of University Students in Hopfenštokova Street, others were taken out of their apartments and taken to Petschk's palace, where the Gestapo interrogated all the victims, "writes Syruček and Svoboda.

On November 17, nine students were executed without trial in Ruzyně, where others arrested during the raid on student dormitories everywhere in Prague were taken to the local barracks. They arrested a total of 1,800 students, but released some of them when they proved themselves as members of a fascist organization or were foreigners.

The remaining 1185 were loaded onto a train in which students had already been arrested in Brno, and they were all taken to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where they were placed among other political prisoners. Across the republic, the Nazis hung bilingual posters describing their retaliation for student protest as a warning.

Sources: Milan Syruček and Josef Svoboda, Why the insignia of Charles University disappeared - 70 years of searching for 700-year-old symbols of Czech history, Jan Gebhart and Jan Kuklík, Dramatic and weekdays of the Protectorate, http://www.dnyceskestatnosti.cz