A guard tower at the site of a former communist hard labor camp in in the area of Jáchymov and Horní Slavkov in Western Bohemia.
The darkest parts of Czech history can be more didactic, according to Jaroslav Pinkas of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes (Ústav pro studium totalitních režimů).
At a seminar on the crimes of Bolshevism organized by the Committe on Security of the Czech Senate held April 14, Pinkas told the crowd that the Nazi and Communist eras should not be taught to school children as an inventory of dates and facts and in isolation from each other, but rather that instruction on this part of history should lead students to understand the cause of the rise of totalitarian regimes in general.
He said the idea is not to get too theoretical, but to present how the regimes work in practice, and the day-to-day repression of individual human rights. This can be done, says Pinkas, by studing the stories of dissidents and others who stood up against the regimes. He also said understanding the social policies that gave legitimacy to the regimes was equally essential.
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