Liberation Festival Pilsen

Patton and pilsen

On May 5th, 1990, hundreds of thousands of people descended onto Pilsen, Czech Republic in celebration of the city’s Allied liberation in 1945. This celebration was 45 years in the making. During the Communist era, Allied liberation of West and Southwest Bohemia was repressed to preserve the Red Army’s reputation as Czechoslovakia’s liberators.

The celebratory crowd was gathered not just to honor the end of World War II and Nazi occupation, but to honor the cultural independence denied to Czechs as a Soviet satellite. “It felt so right that our town was freed from the Nazis by a western army,” Frantisek Kotva told the Associated Press that day in 1990. “We all loved the GIs, but then we had to forget about them for a long time.”

In 2015, photography enthusiast and Houston native Darrell Hancock joined the now-annual festivities with his camera. Several of his pictures are on display at the museum to educate visitors on Liberation Festival Pilsen (Slavnosti svobody Plzeň). 

Members of Czech historical societies reenacted American and Belgian forces entering Pilsen and forcing the German Army to retreat. The same tanks also performed in the Convoy of Freedom, a parade traveling through Pilsen. Reenactors saluted, people waved flags, and World War II veterans mingled with the population just as they did in 1945. 

After liberation, American soldiers would often recall how their tanks would be flooded with cheering, laughing, celebrating Czech people, often wearing native clothing as a symbol of Czech independence. Many soldiers received gifts of food, flags, and flowering lilac branches. The few surviving American soldiers return to Pilsen to honor the city’s liberation in what is now called “The Day of the Lilacs”.