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No easy answers in confronting the past


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June 11th, 2008 issue

It’s a well-established principle in psychotherapy that trauma cannot be repressed indefinitely. Sooner or later, the sins and tragedies of the past have to be exhumed and purged, or at least openly examined and understood, if a person is to be healthy and grow.

The entire country seems to be going through that process now in grappling with the most notorious communist show trial in its history, the 1950 prosecution of dissident Milada Horáková, which ended in her execution. In yet another legal ruling, the Supreme Court has reversed an Upper Court decision that freed 87-year-old Ludmila Brožová-Polednová, who played a critical role in prosecuting Horáková. Meanwhile, Zítra se bude, a new chamber opera that dramatizes the trial with a chilling libretto and riveting score, has just finished a sold-out run at the National Theater.
The same sense of inevitability that characterized the original trial now seems to haunt the Brožová-Polednová case. There’s no question about her complicity in the trial; in fact, the record suggests that she took to her state-imposed duties with particular relish, even attending Horáková’s execution. And, despite the protracted maneuvering in the courts, she is still legally responsible for her behavior. As a practical matter, Brožová-Polednová may not live long enough to serve her sentence. Either way, no one can be happy about the idea of jailing an 87-year-old woman.
In a larger sense, the Brožová-Polednová case is another demonstration of the complexities of confronting the past. Attack it too aggressively and you’ll end up like the deposed Kaczynski brothers in Poland, whose relentless attempts to ferret out communist collaborators quickly soured the electorate. But let it go unexamined too long and you end up with the difficult questions of the Brožová-Polednová case: Should someone be prosecuted for an offense more than half a century old? Did Brožová-Polednová really have any choice? What practical purpose is served by imprisoning an octogenarian?
As is often the case, art provides a guide, if not a definitive answer. The point of confronting the crimes of the past is to make sure they never happen again, and the first step in that process is a clear understanding of exactly what happened. Zítra se bude does not offer a linear narrative in that sense. But its use of the documentary record, and re-creation of the poisonous atmosphere of the trial, is devastatingly effective. No one who sees it can leave the theater without a profound sense of the injustice and loss Horáková’s trial represented.
Ultimately, resolution of the past has to move forward on every level. But, at the moment, art seems to hold more promise and potential for healing than the law.


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