Living torches

Protesting against the aggression of the Warsaw Pact forces in Czechoslovakia in 1968, “living torches” went aflame not only in Czechoslovakia, where Jan Palach and Jan Zajíc performed the dramatic act of self-immolation. Among those who made the ultimate sacrifice were Ryszard Siwiec, the lone defender of the Poles’ honor, who became the symbol of Polish-Czechoslovak solidarity, and two Hungarians, Sándor Bauer from Budapest and Márton Moyses residing in Romania, who paved the way for Hungarian-Czechoslovakian idea of solidarity.On the 50th anniversary of the invasion, let those Central-European “human torches” remind the contemporary about the solidary roots of the struggle waged by the nations of our part of Europe: a struggle for independence and sovereignty.