„Mene Tekel“ Festival Hosts Reconstruction of Political Trial in Prague

The fifth international „Mene Tekel“ festival was held in the Czech Republic. The festival exposes totalitarianism, evil and violence under the former communist-controlled Czechoslovakia through exhibitions, films, and talks with former political prisoners or by reconstructing a political trial.

In the context of the Mene Tekel Festival, law students have rekindled the memory the life of a former political prisoner Dagmar Simkova.

At age 23 Dagmar Simkova was sentenced to prison for spreading so called “subversive” leaflets and helping her friends who were deserters from the army.

She spent 13 years in prison and wrote her memoirs “We Were There Too” after she emigrated to Australia in 1968.

In a courtroom of the Supreme Court in Prague they reconstructed her political trial from 1952.

[Reconstruction of a Political Trial]:

Arrest:
Surname and name: Simkova Dagmar

Date of birth 23.5.1929

Nationality: Czechoslovak

Class origin: Bourgeois class

[Jan Rericha, Festival Director]:

„I think that the main mission of the Mene Tekel festival is to bow to all people around the world who sacrificed their own freedom and eventually their own lives for freedom and democracy.“

[Reconstruction of a Political Trial]:

„Blood, shouting, torture and gallows-trees are hidden behind a massive wall through which does not get even a feeble voice and behind the wall there are cheerful busses carrying tourist and newspapers full of articles about brutality and injustice of capitalism.“

The main role was played by actress Debora Stolbova.

[Debora Stolbova, Actress]:

„I think it is very nice that she was able, even in the worst conditions, to hunger-strike for other female-prisoners, even when she was at the edge of exhaustion she decided to hunger-strike.“

[Reconstruction of a Political Trial]:

„We were fanatics of self-sacrifice, searching for ideal, freedom against merciless authority, we believed that we were helping create a new era and that the court of history would prove that it was not only midsummer madness.“

[Jan Rericha, Festival Director]:

„If it were not for these people I think that humankind would have died out a long time ago. So this is for us, the main point, to highlight these people and their destiny so that these people become our model. They are the elite of humankind, (the) elite of our nation.“

NTD News, Prague, Czech Republic.

Foto: NTD