What was new in Prague?
On the first day of June the Večerní Praha radio station brought the news about a fire in E. F. Burian Theatre destroying two stage sets and some props.
The International Day of Children in Prague was celebrated by 162 000 kids.
On June 5th the papers were full of the news about the assassination attempt on the forty-two year old R.F.Kennedy.
The topic of emigrants was brought up and numbers that were previously held in secret were revealed – right after February 1948 over 12 000 people left the republic, in the year 1949 the number was almost 9 000 and thousands continued leaving until 1951. In the year 1964 the number of emigrants was about 1500, at that time the tourism was gradually improving.
The Middle School of Economics in Resslova Street opened a box linguistic laboratory with automatic stereopticon, tape recorders and special acoustic walls.
The models showed spectacular netting swimming suits from elastic material and summer leather sandals called „arabky“ with a thin strap between the thumb and index finger (price: 120 Kč).
The press was concerned not only about the sorry state of Prague hospitals, but also of Prague creameries (three old factories were not sufficient as far as the quantity went and also it would be neccessary to secure non-returnable packages)…
Šimek and Grossmann performed their „text appeals“ called „Special school party“ in the Semafor theatre reaping great success, journalists wrote enthusiastic reviews about them.
On the Curie square the construction of a new Hotel Intercontinental began, the hotel was intended for opening in 1970.
A new area of Ruzyně airport was opened on June 15th. The new building was able to check-in 1380 local and 890 international passengers per hour.
Aged 71, national artist Zdeněk Štěpánek, who we commemorate in a separate article, died on June 20th. Last respects were paid to him on June 26th.
The wine bar Viola on the Národní avenue celebrated five years of poetry. Viola was founded by an american beat poetry lover Jiří Osterman and thanks to the understanding of Karel Majer, the owner of Restaurants and Canteens of Prague 1 company.
The construction of the swimming area Džbán in Prague 6 had begun.
The case of Novotný junior
On 28.6. the Slovakian journal Práca published an articled titled „Bussiness spirit of Novotný junior“ based on information provided by ČTK. The investigation department of General Prosecutor’s office (Generální prokuratura) looked into the property machinations of several civilians, amongst which was also the son of former president Antonín Novotný. It came to light that during the construction of his summer house and reconstruction of his villa at Malvazinky the soldiers of the Czechoslovakian army were forced to help in his private interests. It has happened at least 25 times during the weekends of 1966-7 and by the direct order of the expresident’s wife and president’s escort. All the expenses were paid by the President’s office. The circumstances under which Novotný junior had gained the villa also had a desidedly fishy fragrance. He was originally entitled to just one flat in the villa, but later on all the other four families residing there at that time were moved out and given flats in government possession. For the house to gain the status of a family house some of the living space was taken out of residential property status.
Documents and laws
On Thursday, June 27th, the Literární listy, Mladá fronta, Czech edition of Práce and Zemědělské noviny newspapers published a document called „Two thousand words“ (Dva tisíce slov) signed by a number of celebrities well known from the fields of science, culture and sports (including: Jan Werich, Emil Zátopek, Věra Čáslavská, Beno Blachut, Jiří Menzel, Jaroslav Seifert, Jiří Trnka, Jan Tříska, Rudolf Hrušínský, Jaromil Jireš). The document had immediately sparked off waves of discussions. One Slovakian MP, general Kodaj, criticised it particularly fiercely, saying it was a display of contrarevolution. The chairman of the National Assembly (Národní shromáždění) Josef Smrkovský said that it’s tragic, because it happened only one day after the acceptance of the free speech law. Our project provides information about this document in separate articles.
In June 1968 three important social laws were passed: about the changes in health insurance, in maternity benefits, child benefits and social insurance of employees. The maternity leave was prolonged by 4 weeks from 22 to 26, the one-time benefit after giving birth was set as 1000 CZSK and the maternity benefit was set at 90% of one’s daily income.
On 27.6. the Literární listy newspapers pondered the wait-and-see attitude of the Vatikan, which was hoping that the post-January development will offer the solution of „unsolved questions between the church and state“ and „opening the way towards ČSSR-Vatikan relationship normalization“.
Vilém Hejl published an article titled „Znovu v podezření“ (Back under suspicion), in which he draws attention to the fact, that K 231 which originally caused a great stir which was followed by increased suspicion. After years of citizen apathy it was surprising, that an organization spanning tens of thousands people was up and running in a couple of weeks, and that it gatherd such a mighty response just by its mere existence…
He was soon accused of being a pawn of opposition party. …K 231 generously suggests cancelling all the judgements passed in years 1948-1967.