The live streaming program of the Liberation Festival Pilsen stars on May 3 at 11 a.m.

The Liberation Festival studio will go in the air on Sunday, May 3, at 11 a.m., in time when the Convoy of Liberty was originally scheduled to set off. The almost eight-hour program, which will commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the liberation of Pilsen by the US Army, will be opened by the Lord Mayor of Pilsen Martin Baxa. It will be live streamed at the website www.slavnostisvobody.cz/live, Facebook and YouTube.

“Although we cannot celebrate this important anniversary of the liberation of Pilsen as we originally planned, I believe the citizens will commemorate the events that happened 75 years ago with dignity through this internet broadcast. I hope that people from various parts of the Czech Republic and from all over the world will use the opportunity to watch the broadcast, “said the Lord Mayor of Pilsen, Martin Baxa.

“Anyone having the access to internet can watch the program. The studio will offer interviews with representatives of living history clubs – reenactors, historians, period witnesses and artists, and there are also plans to get online with veterans from the Czech Republic, USA and Belgium, “said Jana Komišová, Head of the Department Marketing department of the City of Pilsen. The broadcast will be presented by Vladimír Šťovíček, swing and jazz music will be performed by the Pilsner Jazz Band.

The first hour of the program, which means from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m., will belong to historical military vehicles. Together with Pavel Rogl, the owner of military vehicles of the US Army and the commander of the 16th Armored Division, the viewers will see the only Sherman tank in the Czech Republic, which he had brought from faraway Argentina and completely renovated. The interview will be accompanied by documentary footage from the Convoy of Liberty 2018. The fly past of the American training aircraft Harvard live broadcast has been planned, as well as the wreath laying ceremony at the 16th Armored Division Memorial and at the Memorial to the Czechoslovak soldiers who fought on the western front at Husova street. The fates affected by World War II captured by the non-profit organization Post Bellum is the beginning of the second hour of broadcasting, from 12 noon to 1 pm, it will be presented by Martin Kroupa, secretary of the College of the Memory of the Nation. The interesting fate of the Pilsen hotelier, which was marked by the occupation, war, the bombing of Pilsen and the liberation of the city by the American army, will be described by Jana Poncarová the author of the book of the story under the title Eugenia. Karel and David Foud and Ivan Rollinger, the authors of the brand new book Freedom was not free, based on the fates of individual divisions, stories and memories of veterans during the liberation of Pilsen and Western Bohemia, will come to the studio. Ivan Rollinger is the curator of the Patton Memorial Museum as well; museum opened in 2005 and refurnished and reconstructed last year. A period film of the American National Archive will accompany the Patton Memorial Museum presentation.

The third hour of the program, from 1 pm to 2 pm, will focus on life in the protectorate, the anti-Nazi resistance, the Pilsen uprising, but also the role of the American army in the liberation of Bohemia, including the stories of men from the 2nd Infantry Division. The guests will be members of the Tommy & Yankee Military living history club Daniel Malý, Tomáš Hataj and Petr Tolar, who is also a member of of the Czechoslovak Legionary Community senior management. The broadcast will be complemented by a period fashion show with the commentary by Štěpánka Skálová, whose main subject of interest is, in addition to everyday life in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, women’s clothing in the 1920s and 1940s. The broadcast will be accompanined by documentary footage from the National Film Archive. Children of love and the time when the US military was not allowed to be talked about will be from 2 pm to 3 pm. He will be dominated by stories of children of American soldiers, a topic elaborated by Veronika Bednářová, a Czech cultural journalist and foreign reporter, as well as one specific life destiny. Jiří Langmajer, a former member of the opera of the J. K. Tyl Theater, will come to the studio to talk about. The laying of flowers at the Memorial of the 2nd Infantry Division on Chodské náměstí will be broadcast live. From 3 pm to 4 pm, will be remembered the spontaneous free celebrations of the liberation by the US military in 1990, the birth of the Convoy of Liberty military historical parade, or the establishment of military history clubs. These include the Military Car Club Plzeň, which commemorates 30 years of its existence, including participation in the celebrations in Normandy. Representatives of the club Rudolf Bayer, Vojtěch Kašák and also Václav Marhoul, the film director, its member, will take part in the broadcasting. Jaroslav Samson Lenk will remember Jan Vyčítal, who is associated with Pilsen by the famous song back then in 1945. He will also accompany the broadcast with his songs.

The last two hours will belong mainly to veterans. The documentary from the Liberation Festival 2015 will remind you of the unforgettable moments of the evening meeting with veterans at the Republic Square. The annual meetings with the soldiers of General Patton’s 3rd Army are remembered by those who take care of them regularly, Pavla Kocourková and Tomáš Raboch. The unveiling of the memorial plaque to the Czechoslovak Independent Armored Brigade in Arromanches in Normandy, France last year and the January presentation of the Freedom Celebrations in Washington and New York will be recalled by Deputy Mayor Michal Vozobule and the City Councilor Lucie Kantorová. Messages from Czech, American and Belgian veterans or their families will close the online program, which replaced the exceptional this year´s Liberation Festival due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, City Hall had to cancel the Liberation Festival scheduled for May 1-6, 2020 in mid-March. The event will therefore be commemorated via an Internet broadcast on May 3. He also remembers the memory of the fallen, at the Memorial of the 16th Armored Division and the Memorial to the Czechoslovak soldiers who fought on the western front at Husova street. The laying of flowers at the Memorial of the 2nd Infantry Division at Chodské náměstí will be broadcast live as well. The city will also broadcast on May 6 from the Thank you, America! memorial, where city representatives, the US Ambassador and the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Belgium will lay flowers.