Ostrava - Jiří Hruška teaches history and Czech at a secondary school in Ostrava. When he started his job 15 years ago, he realized he did not know how to teach modern history and especially the crimes of communism and what textbooks he should use.
"At university I learned nothing about this. I had to teach myself first and find some materials," he says. "And the situation is similar today. My colleagues don't know how to teach about the 40 years of totalitarianism."
Hruška is a member of the civic group Pant, which on Wednesday 10 December started a conference in Ostrava, entitled Silence Is Also a Lie, or Why We Must Speak and Teach about Communist Crimes. The event featured historians, journalists and communist-era dissidents.
Unreformed commies sneaking back to power
The Moravia-Silesia regional government, based in Ostrava, has since November been headed by Jaroslav Palas, a Social Democrat and former Communist who has invited the current Communist Party to a regional coalition government. It is the first time since 1989 that the Communists have received a share of the executive power.
"Students are confronted with a legal political party that behaves as if it had nothing to do with the crimes of communism," says Petr Šimíček, another secondary-school teacher from Ostrava. He thinks the rise of the unreformed Communists into the regional executive represents yet another reason why Czech post-war history should be discussed and taught at schools.
"In order to become more immune to dangerous ideologies, the young generation has to know and understand our recent past," says Šimíček, who also organises student conferences on modern history. The last of these conferences was on the 1968 Prague Spring in Ostrava.
Coming to terms with own history
Hruška expressed opinion that if the Czech society is ever to come to terms with its communist past, it can only do so at schools. "We have to know how to make the youth interested. The problem is that many history teachers are not at all competent for that."
"There are still older teachers who have a problem with the communist past," continues Hruška. Others continue the habit of teaching dry facts in a boring way. And fresh graduates find themselves in a similar situation as I once did: The uni has not taught them much."
Active approaches to the study of modern history has become Hruška's hobby. He and his students search for documents in archives, visit history institutes and play games reviving re-enacting the 1970s and 1980s. They discuss contemporary issues, including recent allegations that writer Milan Kundera was an informer in the 1950s.
Filling gap in research & publishing
"We want to provide the public and especially schools with reliable information about communism and modern history," says Petr Pánek, one of the founders of the Pant association.
"Current surveys show that Czechs have chosen to come to terms with the past by forgetting it," says Josef Albrecht, Czech Television art director and author of a successful documentary series Příběhy železné opony (The Tales of the Iron Curtain). He calls for more awareness: "Isn't there finally a time to start seriously teach the communist era at schools?"
The Pant team used Wednesday's conference to present a new website, Postkomunismus.cz. "The site was one of the first things we came up with. There we want to collect all serious information relating to the communist past and present," says Albrecht.
The site will include current articles run by the media, opinions and stories of people who were persecuted by the communist regime, as well as teaching materials for schools. The site will run under the auspices of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regime and Masaryk University's International Institute of Political Science.
