Jan Palach

JAN 01 1969 · 12:00

Jan Palach, student of philosophy, in his university identification photograph. He set himself on fire at the top of Wenceslas Square on 16 January 1969. Place: Top of Wenceslas Square, in front of the National Museum Figures: Jan Palach, twenty, student of history and political economics at Charles University · Libuše Palachová, his mother · Doctor Jaroslava Moserová, his attending physician at the burn unit Five months after the invasion, the city is settling into something the regime will call konsolidace: the press resumes its old voice, the borders close, the new normalization apparatus assembles itself. Jan Palach, a twenty-year-old student of history and political economy in his second year at Charles University, writes a letter signed torch number one. He has organized, with two friends, a pact: each of them in turn will set himself on fire until the regime restores press freedom and bans the distribution of the Soviet newspaper Zprávy. On the afternoon of January 16, 1969, he walks from the steps of the National Museum to the fountain near the statue of Saint Wenceslas, douses his clothes in ether and petrol, and lights himself. A passing tram conductor smothers him with his coat. Palach is conscious. He dictates his demands to Moserová in the burn unit. He dies on January 19.