Bronze tank caterpillar track

Right next to the Town Hall there’s a memorial to the victims of 21 August 1968, designed as a replica of a tank caterpillar track, the individual sections of which are engraved with the names of the nine people who lost their lives in Liberec when the occupying forces invaded (the memorial is the work of J. Gdovín, 1990). Liberec was the second city with the highest number of fatalities, after Prague. The last tenth segment of the track is empty, a reminder that several other people were shot in the city. The tank track is cast in bronze, and when M. Bernard, the man behind this memorial, was looking for this metal, one donor brought him a Janský blood donor medal, saying "Blood for blood".

Liberec Testimonies

One of the many people shot was Petr Šída, who was struck by a total of seven bullets. Despite being seriously wounded, he gave up his place in the ambulance to another severely injured man, and this act of heroism earned him the Liberec Commemorative Medal in 2014. Mr Šída's memories of August 1968 and his life are recorded on the Memory of the Nation website. His trousers, satchel and shoe with their bullet holes can now be seen in the North Bohemian Museum in the exhibition Liberec Fragments, in the section aptly named Wild North. Another eyewitness to the invasion in Liberec was Václav Havel, who would go on to become president, and together with actor Jan Tříska, he joined the anti-occupation radio broadcast.