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Veteran status possible for fighters

Bill would recognize Third Resistance men and women officially

By Markéta Hulpachová
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
January 30th, 2008 issue

VLADIMÍR WEISS/THE PRAGUE POST
Members of the SBPV (from left): Stanislav Stránský, Ladislav Bergmann, Naďa Viková, Václav Kolenatý, Josef Ernberg, Věra Kocůrková and Josef Hájek.
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During the 20th century, the Czech Republic witnessed its share of oppressive regimes and, correspondingly, its wave of resistance movements. Whether they revolted against the Austro-Hungarian Empire during World War I or sabotaged the Nazis in the World War II-era Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, factions willing to fight for democracy sprang up each time the nation’s freedom was threatened by a foreign power.
Known as the First and Second Resistance, the respective members of these movements have since been officially recognized by the state, receiving “war veteran” status and financial rehabilitation.
But not all of the country’s resistance fighters have earned such acknowledgement.
Between 1948 and 1989, thousands of Czechs were castigated for their anti-communist sentiments. Called the Third Resistance, these men and women braved exile, imprisonment and political persecution for opposing the communist regime. Nineteen years after the Velvet Revolution, the state has yet to commemorate them.
 Now, with a newly introduced bill that passed through the first reading in the Senate Jan. 17, the members of the Third Resistance may finally receive state recognition.
“Primarily, this draft bill should be a sort of moral valuation of the brave men and women who risked their personal liberty and their lives to fight for their country and defend the ideals of freedom and democracy,” Jiří Liška, one of the senators who collaborated with the Confederation of Political Prisoners (KPV) to draft the bill, said prior to the first reading.
Unlike the laws passed in the 1990s, which entitled certain victims of the communist regime, including former political prisoners, to monetary compensation, Liška stressed that the significance of this bill is largely symbolic.
“The law is neither an entitlement to compensation nor for any substantial material benefits,” he said.
Broad application
Because of its purposely ambiguous definition of “resistance” and “opposition,” the law — if passed — would unify a wide range of personas whose acts against communism span the decades.
Some, like Milan Paumer and Josef and Ctirad Mašín, who are still occasionally referred to as murderers for their violent acts against communism in the 1950s, would be exonerated.
Others, such as Major General Marcel Ludikar, a World War II Royal Air Force pilot who re-emigrated to the United Kingdom amid the military lustrations in 1949 Czechoslovakia, would be honored in memoriam.
The third and arguably the largest group comprised those who were imprisoned for their views. “The political prisoners who in any way participated in the anti-communist movement should have been granted resistance fighter status a long time ago,” said Association of Former Political Prisoners (SBPV) Chairman Stanislav Stránský. “They deserve it simply because they were punished by that terrible regime, and it’s about time — most of us have only a few years before turning 100.”
If approved in its third reading in the Chamber of Deputies, the bill still needs executive approval before being signed into law — a fact that only enforces Stránský’s skepticism.
“Given the speed of the legislative process, it will be a miracle if we are still alive by the time the bill gets to the third reading,” he said.
A former political prisoner who was incarcerated from 1949 to 1960, Stránský said he has lobbied state officials to recognize the Third Resistance since 1991, but his efforts were repeatedly blocked by politicians — to this day, the bill is staunchly opposed by members of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM).
“The KSČM sees a great danger in this bill, because it paves the way toward the legitimization of violent acts that happened under the flag of communist resistance,” said party spokeswoman Monika Hoření. “Furthermore, the party sees a problem in labeling the entire former regime as criminal.”
Although he called the bill’s successful first reading in the Senate a “step in the right direction,” Stránský said he disagreed with a provision that requires applicants to submit a lengthy questionnaire to the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes (ISTR) before being considered for Third Resistance status.
While it is difficult to determine the exact number of former resistance fighters who would be recognized by the law, ISTR Director Pavel Žáček said it may be comparable to Slovakia, where a similar law passed in 2006 affected more than 300 people.
Although laws recognizing communist resistance fighters already exist in most former Eastern bloc countries, legal provisions dealing with the communist past are in their infancy here, Žáček said.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have as developed a system as our colleagues in Poland,” he pointed out. “Working through the archives to find all those who fall under this law would be incredibly labor-intensive.”
Despite this bureaucratic burden, Žáček said he sees the bill as an opportunity to honor those who have never received public recognition. “There’s a whole line of people who never came forward and of whom we don’t know,” he said. “If this law is passed, we will be able to dig through the archives and find them.”

Markéta Hulpachová can be reached at mhulpachova@praguepost.com


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