Monument to Palach and Zaitsa

January 16, 1969 on Wenceslas Square was the self-immolation of Jan Palach, who protested against the occupation of the Czechoslovak Republic by Soviet troops. Jan Palach was a twenty-year-old student who, seeing the passivity in the actions of his compatriots in front of the troops that occupied Czechoslovakia, committed an act of self-immolation out of despair, fearing that the country might forever remain a totalitarian state. Jan Zaitz followed suit.