Word: palache
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Absenteeism regularly affects about 5% of the work force, or 230,000 people, and consumption of alcoholic beverages has increased noticeably. One subtle indication of resentment is the array of vigil candles and fresh flowers regularly placed around the Prague grave of Jan Palach, the student who publicly immolated himself in 1969 to protest the Russian occupation...
Shapiro put some of his feelings into a recent poem called "The Funeral of Jan Palach." Though Palach was a Czech who set fire to himself after the Russian invasion of 1968, Shapiro says that his poem is "really about the funeral of America. More than anything I can say it demonstrates my real feelings." Excerpt: "Halfway in mud and slush the microphones picked up/ It was raining on the houses./ It was snowing on the police cars./ . . . And my own mother was brave enough she looked/ And it was all right I was dead." Shapiro adds: "There...
...What would it change?" shrugged a young mechanic from Kladno. In Prague, some Czechs placed flowers and candles on the grave of Jan Palach, the student who burned himself to death on Jan. 16, 1969, in protest against the invasion. The flowers and candles were removed by the authorities...
...anniversary itself began calmly. In peaceful protest, all but a few Czechoslovaks refused to ride the public transport, and boycotted shops and restaurants. In Prague, more than 300 bouquets were piled on the grave of Jan Palach, the 21-year-old student who last January burned himself to death in a protest against the continued Soviet occupation. At noon, to the cacophony of auto horns and factory whistles, traffic braked to a halt and many of the 50,000 people who jammed Wenceslas Square raised their fingers in the victory sign. In a show of defiance, Czechoslovakia stood still...
...week's end half a million Czechoslovaks filled the streets of Prague as a huge funeral procession followed Palach's grey oak coffin from a statue of Jan Hus in a courtyard of the university. It was accompanied by four truckloads of flowers; a band sent the mournful strains of funeral dirges across the city, fearing violence at what had turned into a national hero's funeral, the government stage-managed most of the arrangements and issued a volley of pleas for calm. They proved unnecessary; partly out of respect, and partly perhaps because the nation...