discussion with Petr Oslzlý and Věra Roubalová Kostlánová
A meeting between two prominent figures of the Czech dissident movement will explore the themes of civic courage, moral responsibility, and the Jewish experience in the second half of the twentieth century. Věra Roubalová Kostlánová—a signatory of Charter 77, psychotherapist, and a woman deeply shaped by both her family’s Holocaust memory and Communist persecution—will join Petr Oslzlý, a theatre-maker who opposed the totalitarian regime through both cultural and civic engagement, in a conversation about what it meant to live according to one’s conscience in a time of unfreedom. The two speakers share personal experiences of repression, a refusal to submit to the dictates of the regime, and the conviction that resistance to injustice is expressed not only through major political acts, but also through everyday solidarity, independent thinking, the pursuit of truth, and the willingness to bear the consequences of one’s choices. The discussion will offer a personal perspective on dissent as a space of human and intellectual integrity, but also as an environment in which the memory of Jewish families, experiences of exclusion, and sensitivity toward vulnerable and persecuted people became intertwined in distinctive ways.
The discussion will be held in Czech.