This year, drumming against the silent majority on the anniversary of the first Jewish transport to leave Prague finally also resounded against the silent stillness of the area surrounding Bubny Station.
For many years, we have been promising that we will soon begin converting Bubny Station into the Memorial of Silence, and we no longer want to make empty promises. This year, just before Drumming for Bubny, the Czech Ministry of Culture issued a press release about its new budget in which our project plays an important role.
Správa Železnic, the state-run company responsible for administering the country’s railway network, is preparing work on the historical tracks. Things are finally in motion, and so we hope that next year’s drumming will join the noise of heavy machinery and mixers.
The Memorial of Silence has entered into a dialogue with urban planners working on the station’s greater surroundings. We are striving for the future city within a city being planned for this “ash heap of history” (our polite term for the surrounding brownfield) to embrace some of Prague’s identity. And that it will be given more respect than the two totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century gave it. This, too, is one role of the future place of memory located on the boudnary between the city of the past and the city of future. A public discussion on the development of the public space surrounding Bubny Station was held in the station’s departure hall on 11 October.
