International Students’ Day, commemorated annually on November 17, 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 National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library will host a free live webinar discussing International Students’ Day and Velvet Revolution Day at noon on November 6. “Voices from the Homelands” guests include Czech and Slovak diplomats who had been student activists in 1989. Following the live discussion, the webinar will be available online to watch.
The culmination of the series of events commemorating International Students’ Day will be the ceremonial closing of the NCSML Orloj season. Following the closing ceremony, the NCSML book club will discuss “The Advantage of Being Born Poor,” by Ernie Buresh, the namesake of the Buresh Immigration Clock Tower.
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