The first full Orloj season is coming to an end. Join us in the Skala Bartizal Library for a closing ceremony with special guests from the family of Ernie Buresh, the namesake of the Buresh Immigration Clock Tower which contains the only Prague-style astronomical clock in North America. Ernie Buresh’s wife, Joanne, and daughter, Wendy, will participate in the NCSML book club’s discussion of The Advantage of Being Born Poor by Ernie Buresh immediately following the closing ceremony.
The date November 17 was selected in commemoration of International Students’ Day which recognizes the role of student advocates in the struggle for freedom and democracy.
After Nazis invaded Prague in 1939, thousands of people, including hundreds of students from Charles University, gathered to protest Nazi occupation. Nazis opened fire, killing Václav Sedláček, a bakery worker and Jan Opletal, a third-year medical student.
On November 17, 1939, German troops stormed university dormitories in the capital city of Czechoslovakia and executed nine student leaders without trial. Nazis deported more than 1,200 students to concentration camps and closed Czech universities. Higher education institutes remained closed until the end of World War II six years later.
In 1941, November 17 was declared International Students’ Day in London by exiled students as a tribute to Opletal and other students who were subsequently killed.
Decades later, November 17, 1989, rallies commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 1939 Nazi raid on universities turned into a demonstration demanding democratic reforms and dissatisfaction with the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. Riot police barricaded the crowd and started beating people. The protests sparked the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, which resulted in the resignation of the communist government and the establishment of democratic elections and parliamentary republic.
The recent Voices from the Homelands webinar was dedicated to the discussion of International Students’ Day and Velvet Revolution Day with guest speakers who had been student activists in 1989 and are now Czech and Slovak diplomats. The webinar is available online to watch.
For more information about the Buresh Immigration Clock Tower and Orloj, visit NCSML.org/orloj
