The Veterans Day remembrance ceremony at the Prague’s Vítkov Hill took place in a rather intimate atmosphere this year, without the ceremonial line-up of soldiers. The coronavirus epidemic claims special measures, and so Defence Minister Lubomír Metnar and Chief of General Staff General Aleš Opata solemnly laid a wreath in solitude.
“Despite the complexity of today’s pandemic situation, it is essential to remember what this day means. It is commemorated by the whole world. We remember soldiers and airmen fallen in both World Wars, but we also pay tribute to the contemporary veterans. We still have the privilege of living with a number of World War II veterans. All of them deserve our deepest respect,” Minister Metnar said and underscored that countries not honouring their veterans do not honour themselves.
Chief of General Staff of the Czech Armed Forces General Aleš Opata highlighted the symbolism deeply rooted in the hearts of all military service personnel. “The Veterans Day is for me a symbol of people and soldiers willing to take up arms and fight for their homeland and their freedom,” General Opata said.
The Czech Republic presently registers 262 World War II veterans alive and some fifteen thousand five hundred younger veterans. In the contemporary foreign missions, twenty-nine service personnel died in the line of duty.
The history of the Veterans Day is linked with the end of World War I on November 11th, 1918. That day became, in the memory of the victims of the deadliest war the mankind had experienced by then, the Veterans Day in democratic countries of Europe, in the United States and Canada. In the Czech Republic, the Veterans Day is officially celebrated from November 2001.
