A Small Ceremony

On May 6, 1945 the 16th Armored Division of General George Patton's Third Army freed the Czech city of Pilsen from the Germans. Two weeks ago the U.S. Embassy in Prague notified the Czechoslovak government of American intentions to hold a small ceremony in Pilsen in celebration of the fifth anniversary of the freeing of the city. From the Czech Foreign Ministry came a prompt and frigid reply: "In view of the fact that the Czechoslovak government is organizing the celebrations of the . . . liberation of the Republic ... it does not consider the celebrations by the American Embassy as desirable."

Last week, as the Foreign Office had foreseen, Czech Premier Antonin Zapotocky went to Pilsen to celebrate liberation after his own fashion. Speaking in the assembly hall of the Pilsen Skoda works, Zapotocky said: "We shall never forget that it was our former Western allies who in Munich . . . weakened and destroyed our defenses . . . Therefore, we cannot believe that the Western capitalist states were at all concerned with our liberty and independence. If anyone fought for our freedom, really defeated and drove out the German invaders, it was solely the heroic Soviet army." Then, on behalf of the workers of the Skoda plant, Zapotocky presented a locomotive to a Russian delegation as a gift to "our beloved Stalin."

Not far from where the Premier spoke stood the foundation stone for a never-finished monument to the American troops who had liberated Pilsen.

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