Crowds gather on Wenceslas Square to remember Communist coup

Around one hundred people turned out on Wenceslas Square on Sunday afternoon to commemorate the Communist coup of 1948. The majority of those present were young people, from the Scouts, the Young Christian Democrats and the Young Conservatives in particular. There were, however, also several older people there who had witnessed the events of February 1948 first hand. They addressed the crowds - in the words of one of the other orators, Mirko Št’astný - ‘to remind them of the horrors that the Czech people lived through’ during the communist period. It was on Wenceslas Square on February 25, 1948, that thousands gathered calling for the then president, Edvard Beneš, to resign, and for Communist Prime Minister Klement Gottwald to replace him at Prague Castle.