Prague, 17 November 1939: the Czech universities shut down
On 28 October 1939, the anniversary of Czechoslovak independence, demonstrations break out in Prague. The medical student is shot; he dies on 11 November. His funeral, on 15 November, turns into a patriotic demonstration.
In reprisal, on the night of 16-17 November 1939, the Gestapo storms the student residences of Prague and Brno. The Reich authorities order all Czech universities closed for three years.
A medical student at Charles University is hunted down in this raid. Should he go to ground with relatives in the city, try to slip abroad clandestinely to join the Czechoslovak forces in exile, or remain in the net of the crackdown?
As the dormitories are raided, what does the student caught in the turmoil attempt?
The action is not individual but collective and imposed by the occupier: more than 1,200 students are deported to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, and nine alleged ringleaders — eight students (among them , , ) and Professor — are shot at dawn on 17 November without trial. The Czech universities remain closed until 1945; unlike in Poland, no clandestine university is reconstituted. The date would become International Students' Day. The episode illustrates the Nazi strategy of decapitating the elites of an occupied nation.
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