Opponents of the neo-Nazis held a concert today to protest a march being
convened on Saturday by the Autonomous Nationalist movement in Ústí nad Labem.
More than 600 people gathered on Mírové náměstí. The organizers planned the high
point of the evening to be a performance by the band Pražský výběr, fronted by
outgoing Czech Human Rights and Minorities Minister Michael Kocáb.
Organizers intentionally planned the concert for Wednesday in order to avoid the
neo-Nazis this Saturday. They want the streets of the town to be as empty as
possible on the day of the march. "We have an immodest aim, namely, we want
everyone in Ústí to reject the neo-Nazis. We want them to say, 'Yeah, Ústí, it
wasn't worth it there, I won't be going there for any more Nazi events'," said
Miroslav Brož of the "We don't want neo-Nazis in Ústí" Initiative, which
organized the concert.
"We know their intellectual background all too well, they are just a bunch of
primitives who are unaware of the impact of what they are doing. They march
around in the colors of the German Reich, they are neo-Nazis who to a certain
extent are not even aware that they themselves would have fallen prey to the
German Nazi apparatus," Michael Kocáb said prior to the concert on the "20
minutes with Radiožurnál" radio program.
Kocáb told journalists that even though he had come to Ústí to play music, he
considered his participation to be part of his work as minister. He says the neo-Nazis
actually intend the march as a covert celebration of the 120th anniversary of
Adolf Hitler's birth on 20 April. "This is comical, because these Czech neo-Nazis
would have ended up in the ovens of the Reich," he said. In his view, the
bombing of the the town, which the neo-Nazis allegedly want to commemorate,
cannot be criticized because it was a military blow against the Third Reich.
Kocáb insists he will come to Ústí nad Labem on Saturday to observe the march,
because he has never experienced a similiar neo-Nazi action during his brief
time as minister. He added that he would attempt to respond to the march, but
since he ends his term as minister in several days, he allegedly will not have
time to propose a change to the law on assembly in order to help town
councillors protect their municipalities from similar marches.
Representatives of labor unions also came to Ústí nad Labem today to support the
event against the neo-Nazis. The chair of the Regional Council of Labor Unions,
Jiří Cingr, told ČTK that union members are well aware of the hidden danger the
neo-Nazis represent. In his view they are attempting to abuse the current
economic crisis just as the Nazis did in Germany during the 1930s.
Cingr reminded the press that it was not the first time North Bohemian union
activists have taken action against Nazi marches. In February, when German neo-Nazis
marched in Dresden, Czech labor union members traveled there to support their
opponents. In return, German labor union representatives came to Ústí nad Labem
today.
Today an enormous billboard was unveiled on the building of the Ústí town hall
showing a photograph of the statues of children at the Holocaust memorial in
Lidice, photographed from behind. The billboard reads "The children of Lidice
are also turning their backs on the neo-Nazis" in Czech and German.
According to Brož, it is no accident that the neo-Nazis selected the square in
town that they did for their event. "The children in that photograph were gassed
by the Nazis. We believe that if the neo-Nazis meet on a square that has been
named in those children's honor and give speeches there, it is a desecration of
their memory - a dance by murderers on the graves of their victims," he said. As
part of its campaign, the initiative called on others to photograph themselves
turning their backs on the neo-Nazis. Currently there are said to be more than
600 such photos, many of them by groups of people.
The Autonomous Nationalist movement has permission for three marches in Ústí nad
Labem this Saturday. Officially, they intend to commemorate the victims of the
bombing of the town in April 1945, but opponents of the march claim this is just
an excuse to hold a commemoration of the 120th anniversary of the birth of Adolf
Hitler, which falls on 20 April. Neo-Nazis from Germany will also attend.
