events 2008

Photography of the invasion by Czech-American journalist Dušan Neumann

Photos by Dusan Neumann: "August 21, 1968 in Prague"

When: August 20 - September 30, 2008
Where: American Center

American Center will host an exhibition of 10 black-and-white photographs taken during the invasion on August 21, 1968 in Prague by Czech-American journalist Dušan Neumann.

Mr. Neumann is a journalist, TV and radio correspondent and photographer, currently living in Pennsylvania. He started in Czech TV in 1968 at foreign news desk, but had to leave the country shortly after the Soviet invasion. He held various jobs before immigrating in the USA in 1980, where he returned to journalism and cooperated with BBC World Service, among others. After 1989 he cooperated with Lidové noviny and other Czech periodicals. In recent years he appeared in the Czech BBC radio service and in the Czech radio (Radiožurnál and Rádio Česko). He is currently the U.S. correspondent of the Z1 TV.

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"...I remember that night 40 years ago as if it happened yesterday. That summer we, my two younger sisters and myself, were home alone. Our parents were on invitation in a military recreational facility on the Baltic sea in Poland. The telephone at one o'clock morning usually indicated that some of our friends decided to bivouac with us. But the voice on the other end of the line, belonging to our neighbor,  was trembling. "Turn the radio on and open the window, do you hear it?" said the neighbor, "Russians are invading us". We could not believe it, but a noise of swarms of cargo planes and the radio only humming on frequency where Prague used to broadcast had confirmed the ominous news.  First we called all our friends and relatives. Then, I packed my Soviet made 35mm camera Zenit 3M, stuffed pockets with films and took off to the streets. I was heading toward the airport. It was about 4 o'clock morning, at the Leninova avenue where I saw the first Soviet tank. The belligerent mass of steel marked with a white stripe over the turret rolled toward rather slowly through stunned Prague's morning.

Very soon all the Ministry of Defense buildings were surrounded and Soviet generals were debating the execution of plans. Light airborne tanks manned by non.Causasian soldiers closed the access road to government objects and to Prague's Castle.When I took a picture of a sentry guarding the castle's entrance they raised their weapons.  I decided to go to the Charles University, the School of Sociology,  which I was attending at that time. On the way down I have seen the seat of the government besieged with tank aiming their gun barrels the building's windows.  Tanks on sidewalks blocked the every possible access to the Castle.

With a few friends we went to the Czechoslovak Radio building in Vinohrady, which started broadcast again. The street was blocked with barricades made of trams, buses and some construction material. No match for T-55s.  Somebody hit the fuel barrel on one tank's rear and torched the monster. It was only "victorious" resistance I have seen.

Somewhere, in my parent's house are still hidden rolls of negatives. These pictures all taken on August 21st,  except of the last one which symbolizes the future waiting for the Czechoslovakian children, of  just a small reminder of events that should not be forgotten, especially by those who played then in the sandboxes."

Dušan Neumann