Exhibition in Želiv marks 70th anniversary of Communist crackdown on the country’s religious orders

An exhibition by the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes marking the 70th anniversary of the nation-wide crackdown on Czechoslovakia’s religious orders got underway in the Želiv Monastery on Sunday.

The notorious operations known as Operation K and Operation Ř saw the mass incarceration of monks and nuns and a massive seizure of church property and historical artefacts. The exhibition was launched by a mass celebrated by Cardinal Dominik Duka.

The Monastery in Želiv in the Vysočina region was turned into an internment camp in the 1950s. Among the people who were interned there was Cardinal František Tomášek and Archbishop Karel Otčenášek.