page_title: Jan Opletal
section_title: Velvet Revolution
hierarchical_section_title: Jan Opletal / Velvet Revolution
caption_attribution_description: Čeština: Praha, Václavské náměstí v době Sametové revoluce. Shromážděný dav, pohled od pomníku sv. Václava směrem k Můstku. English: Prague, Wenceslas Square during the Velvet Revolution.
context_page_description: Jan Opletal was a student of the Medical Faculty of the Charles University in Prague, who was shot at a Czechoslovak Independence Day rally on 28 October 1939. He was severely injured at this anti-Nazi demonstration against the German occupation of Czechoslovakia and died two weeks later.
  Jan Opletal is seen as a symbolic figure of the Czech resistance against Nazism.
context_section_description: On the 50th anniversary of the Sonderaktion Prag, 16 and 17 November 1989, demonstrations were held in Bratislava and Prague. The uprising finally led to the Velvet Revolution and the election of Václav Havel as President on 29 December 1989. The Prague demonstrators chose the same route taken by the funeral procession for Jan Opletal 50 years earlier: from Albertov via the Národní třída to Wenceslas Square.
caption: Demonstration on Wenceslas Square, November 1989
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