ARTE Podcast “The Summer of Prague”: A Family Story of Disillusion and Denial

Photo: Archives nationales">

August 1968|Photo: National Archives

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“This is a family subject that dates back to a few years ago. My father then found, in his parents’ apartment, a letter talking about the invasion of Czechoslovakia at the end of the events of the Prague Spring. It’s a pretty terrible letter, which recounts all the atrocities of the invasion, as well as the disappointment of the people, who find themselves invaded and who somehow lose the idea of ​​Soviet friendship, as it is said in this letter. My grandfather, who was for his part a member of the French Communist Party, had therefore received this letter full of disillusion. My father had never heard of this letter, so we believe that my grandfather, after receiving it, hid it. So my father came across it years later, long after my grandfather passed away, while tidying up things in the house. He concluded that my grandfather had hidden it, perhaps for fear of questioning his commitment, of questioning the line of the French Communist Party at the time. He therefore drew a family story that has always interested me, and that I wanted to tell in this podcast. “

In just three minutes, you can tell a strong and touching story. And with a surprising fall!

“Yes, the conditions of the competition required that an event be recounted in three minutes maximum. So there was a time constraint. “

Do you have a family or personal connection with the Czech Republic?

” Not at all. If my grandfather received this letter, it was because he had a very good friend who was a translator in Czechoslovakia at the time for a review then called Revue de la paix et du socialisme. He was gone several years [en Tchécoslovaquie] as a translator, and then kept in touch with friends [en Tchécoslovaquie]. They were the ones who sent him this letter, which he then shared with my grandfather. “