Summary On the same day and at the same time, a general strike began at all faculties in Prague as a protest against the Soviet occupation. We, of course, participated in it. Rajko Grlic and I were in charge of culture," says Srdan Karanovic, the director, remembering the summer of 1968 in Prague, and Rajko Grlic adds the story of the visit of the famous actress Jeanne Moreau to the rebellious students. The strike and sporadic protests, however, did not succeed and the USSR troops remained in Prague. Protesting against this and the lethargy of his compatriots, on January 16, 1969, student Jan Palach set himself on fire on Wenceslas Square in the center of the Czechoslovak capital. Pega Popovic is one of the few people who photographed the body of Jan Palah in the Prague morgue. Those photos, as a big exclusive, were published by the world's leading magazines, among them the French Paris Sword and the Italian Epoch. This , on one level, tells the story of how Popovic managed to take those photos at a time when Soviet tanks were still on the streets of Prague (or somewhere around the corner) and how his professor, the writer Milan Kundera, brought a journalist Parry the sword to him and said to her: "If anyone can give you what you need, it's him!" Popovic gave her the photos, but he also set her one rather strange condition - that he not be signed as the author. This information opens up new levels of this story, it tells about the fears that our students had at that time in occupied Czechoslovakia, but also about how today that extraordinary heroic gesture of Jan Palah is somewhat forgotten in his homeland.

• Biography