2021

A look back at the Light for Victory

Sunday, 28 November, 6 p.m.
The Light for Victory: Kindling the first Hanukkah light in front of the Bubny train station will begin the eight-day cycle of the Festival of Lights.
Photo: Karel Cudlín

A look back at drumming for Bubny 21

16 October 2021
The regular Drumming for Bubny event took place, as every year, on the anniversary of the first Prague transport. We collectively expressed our opinion on the silence that was complicit in events that should never be repeated.


The seventh edition of the Drumming for Bubny event, which was part of this autumn cycle of commemoration for the 80th anniversary of the first Jewish deportations from Prague, was further enhanced with a concert. The performers included Jiří Stivín, Robert Hugo, and students from the Přírodní škola secondary school, while the highlight of the musical programme was an abbreviated version of Steve Reich's composition "Different Trains", performed in the station hall by the young pianist Denis Szalbot.'


Photo: Bára Lockefeer

John Hannah was the fist to visit the Dias exhibition

John Hannah, who was the first visitor to the exhibition of photos by Pavel Dias, came to Prague to attend the opening of the film, "The Auschwitz Report".

Drumming for Bubny 21

Saturday 16 Oct, 5 p.m.

Every year, we have played drums in front of the Prague-Bubny train station in commemoration of the 50,000 citizens who left Prague via the platform at that train station, citizens whose origins were doomed to a different fate – a final solution – than those of their classmates in the elementary school.

On 16 October 1941, the first Prague Jewish transport left by the route now guarded by Aleš Veselý's The Gate of Infinity. The first 5,000 "chosen ones" went to the ghetto in Łódź, Poland. Half of them did not survive the first winter there. On 24 November 1941, the Terezín ghetto was founded.

On 16 October 2021 at 5 p.m., we can collectively express our opinion on the silence that was complicit in the mass murder. It happened, and it can happen again. We trust that you will come to support us and that by our joint efforts we will once again break the silence of general ignorance and our own powerlessness.

The afternoon meeting will be moderated by Bára Hrzánová.
The Tam Tam Batucada drumming orchestra will play its rhythms conducted under the direction of Miloš Vacík. Interludes to the Drumming will feature Jiří Stivín.

This anniversary of the first Prague transport will end with a festive concert in the station hall of the Prague-Bubny station. It will be preceded on the platform of Bubny station by the opening prologue to the exhibition "PAVEL DIAS: Torso - Memories for Tomorrow", which we have prepared for you in the House of the Black Madonna in cooperation with the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague.

THE GALA CONCERT WILL START AT 6:30 p.m.
To start things off, students from the Přírodní škola secondary school will perform poems set to music, poems which boys interned in Terezín published in their magazine Vedem.

One of them was Petr Ginz, who, in his memories, returns to the Holešovice of the First Republic, wandering through the distance, dreaming of a future that was stolen from him...

A programme from the repertoire of Přírodní škola Orchestra:
Remembrance of Prague – Petr Ginz, Linda Langerová
Polar – Petr Ginz, Linda Langerová
What will happen to me? – Unknown author, Vít Novotný
My Country - Hanuš Hachenburg, František Tichý

Songs by the students will be introduced by the school director, František Tichý; together with the founder of the Memorial of Silence project, Pavel Štingl, they will guide you through the concert.

The second part of the concert programme will also be dedicated to the memory of Prague in the 1930s.
Jiří Stivín – flutes, saxophone + Robert Hugo - piano.
The following works will be performed:
Lost Serenades for flute and piano – Emil František Burian
The Metamorphosis of Time – Jiří Stivín
David and Goliath – Jaroslav Ježek
Children's Song No. 6 – Chick Corea

The third part of the musical programme will be dedicated to the composition DIFFERENT TRAINS by the American composer Steve Reich.
This masterful composition, drawing inspiration from the Jewish deportations, has been performed by the well-known Kronos Quartet.
It will be performed in the Station Hall on piano by Denis Szalbot. This young musician, who suffers from Asperger's syndrome and has won numerous awards, represents for the Memorial of Silence one of the groups that the Nazi vision of the future did not include.

Opening of the exhibition of photographs by Pavel Dias: Torso - Memories for Tomorrow

12 October 2021
With the opening of the exhibition of photographs by Pavel Dias, the Memorial of Silence continues its series of cultural events commemorating the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Jewish deportations from Bohemia.
Photo: Karel Cudlín.