The neo-Nazis had threatened Saturday, November 10, to march through the city’s historic Jewish quarter on the anniversary of Kristallnacht in 1938 – the night of terror when the Nazis attacked synagogues and Jewish homes and businesses throughout Germany and parts of Austria.
Czech authorities banned the march, and about 1,400 policemen were deployed in the capital, including riot police and officers on horses. Equipped with armored vehicles and water cannons, they sealed off most of the historic Jewish quarter.
Up to 2,000 anti-fascists and anarchists in the Old Town also marched and both groups skirmished with a handful of skinheads in the city and clashed with police. Up to six people were injured and there were reports that a shot was fired.
RADICALS DETAINED
During and after the clashes police "detained 396 radicals, including 96 Slovaks and Germans," between anti-fascist demonstrators and neo-Nazis, confirmed Prague police spokeswoman Eva Brozova said Sunday, November 11.
The detained were questioned and then released, but nearly 200 will be charged with misdemeanors, she said. Police apparently also confiscated many weapons, including guns, batons and knives.
The incidents come at a time of discussions in former Communist countries as to how far freedom of expression can go in their young democracies, BosNewsLife monitored. There were also less violent manifestations.
THOUSANDS PRAY
Thousands of Jews and their supporters reportedly turned up for a Sabbath prayer by Chief Rabbi Karol Sidon and speeches against extremism by Catholic Archbishop Miroslav Vlk and Deputy Prime Minister Cyril Svoboda in front of the 13th century Old-New Synagogue.
Several of the speakers, among them 80-year-old novelist and Holocaust survivor Arnost Lustig, warned against the reemergence of Nazism in Europe. Lustig said in published remarks he was happy to see so many Czechs gathering in downtown Prague to protest the far-right extremists.
"It is great because I remember when we went to the concentration camp, some people just crossed over to the other side of the road." The protesters, many adorning their coats with yellow Jewish stars that Jews were forced to wear during World War Two, said the extremists’ right of assembly ended where the freedoms of others started. "It is like if you let murderers congregate and make preparations for a murder," a visibly moved 52-year-old teacher Hana Kroulikova told reporters. "There is nothing to talk about here." (With BosNewsLife’s Stefan J. Bos).
