Perhaps the best-known protest came from 20-year-old Jan Palach . As a student at Prague ’ s prestigious Charles University , he participated in demonstrations and strikes against the occupation . When this proved to no avail , on January 16 , 1969 , after writing a letter intended for publication , he went to Wenceslas Square and set himself on fire . He died three days later . An estimated 500,000 people attended his funeral . One of the slogans scrawled on the Wenceslas Statue before the police removed it read : “ Do not be indifferent to the day when the light of the future was carried forward by a burning body .”
In the ensuing three months , an estimated 25 people sought to emulate his example of suicide to protest the repression ; six succeeded .
In 1977 , the voices of protest and reform could again be heard . They came in the form of a remarkable human rights statement called Charter 77 . But those involved paid a heavy price . Daniel Kumermann was a good example . In a lengthy profile of him in The New Yorker ( November 1990 ) entitled “ The Window-Washer ,” Janet Malcolm wrote :
In 1977 , he had a job as a computer programmer on a six-month trial basis , and not wanting to immediately wreck his chances for a permanent position , he had placed himself in a special category of signers , whose names were kept secret . He lost the job anyway and , after failing to find permanent work in the field , openly re-signed the Charter in the summer of 1978 . Thereafter , only menial work was available to him . During the next twelve years , he was arrested five times and was taken in for interrogation more often than he can remember ....
Kumermann said : “ I always had two [ interrogators ]. There was the one who dealt with the political side of it — the Charter — and the other , who dealt with the Jewish side of it .... They had an anti-Jewish department . They called it the Anti-Zionist Department , actually .... Most of the Charter signers were accused of working with the C . I . A ., and I was accused of working with the Israeli Mossad . They thought in James Bond terms . Also , they believed that America was ruled by the Jews .... They really believed it . They had persuaded themselves of these conspiracy theories .
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