Chronicle of the Prague uprising and first days of liberation, May 1945

TÝDEN VE FILMU. Ceskoslovenska filmova kronika KVĚTEN 1945. The first post-war newsreel - called Week in Film 1945 no. 1 WS of Prague. St. Vitus cathedral above the rest of the city. Street in Prague. Trees. Soldiers. Women in a crowd try to hand another woman money. News of the death of Hitler: “VUDCE PADL.” A man reads “LIDOVE LISTY” on the sidewalk. Women and children stand with their belongings on the sidewalk. Women in uniform walk into the street carrying suitcases. Young boys lounge, one packs his suitcase. People stand on the back of a truck. Military trucks. Trolley cars. 5. KVĚTEN. Man erases "Europa bevor" on a storefront. Woman scratches at words on a window. People knock down a storefront sign: “Sudetendeutsche Gla--beiten”. A man scales the side of the building that says “Reinhard-Heydrich-Ufer.” People raise a flag. Soldiers, people run through the streets. A man in uniform reads into a microphone, using the radio. Soldiers in a truck. Bullets hit the side of a building. Soldiers hide behind cars. A man drags a body along the sidewalk. Men unroll a hose and spray it at an alleyway and the nearby windows. People run. Papers fly from windows. They burn a Nazi flag. People dig up bricks from the ground and pass the bricks along assembly line style. The rubble barricades the street. Jewish star on building above the word “KRALOVKA.” A man reloads a gun. Hand grenades from a box. A soldier scales a rooftop, shoots a gun through a window, anti-aircraft gun. A building in the city burns. Spire on the Prague Astronomical Clock tower burns. Arrests of Germans and civilians - women with their hands raised. Group of soldiers with their arms raised is frisked. Soldiers with white flags climb over one of the rubble barriers. A man in cuffs holds his arms above his head. More men and women with their arms raised are led through the street. Smoke rises. 9. KVĚTEN 1945. The Red Army arrives in Prague. Soldiers drive through town waving a white flag. Procession, man on a tank flies the flag of the Soviet Union. Crowds shake hands. People wave. Man reads from a paper into a microphone. Rubble in the room they are in. CU of the man making the announcement. 10. KVĚTEN 1945. Government meeting in Kosice. Men sit at a long table with documents in front of them. 16. KVĚTEN 1945. President Benes returns to his homeland. Flag in the wind. Soldiers present arms. Benes waves from a train pulling into the station. Photographers. Officers salute. He walks through the crowd of men, shaking hands. Women in flower crowns. People line the sides of Wenceslas Square in Prague for a parade, crowds. Soldiers line the path for the procession of cars to come through. People wave handkerchiefs and small white flags. Benes waves to the excited crowd. 17. KVĚTEN 1945. Crowd in Old Town Square. They have climbed atop the Jan Hus memorial. Army marches through, carrying a flag, “Pravda VÍTEZI!” Young girls in the crowd wave joyfully. Soldiers ride on tanks, a photographer runs alongside. Officer observes. Crowd waves. 18. KVĚTEN 1945. Crowd of mostly men packed in on a street. Representatives of government workers: Zdenek Fierlinger, Klement Gottwald, Bohumil Laušman. Man at a podium, above the flags of Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union speaks to them through two microphones. Building laborers watch from the scaffolding. Another man takes the podium and speaks dramatically. Everyone claps. Men walk along the streets next to buildings in ruin. Piles of rubble. 20. KVĚTEN 1945. Meeting of the Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR in the Smetana Hall. Zdenek Nejedly, Prokop Maxa, Ambassador Zorin, Lt. Col. Kazantsev. In the audience, Ludvik Svoboda, Zoe Svobodová. INT an audience in an auditorium. Stage and long banquet table. Banner: “AT ŽIJE RUDA ARMADA,” long live the Red Army. Large photos of Edvard Beneš and Joseph Stalin hang. One woman and 8 men sit at the banquet table on stage. The audience claps and stands. A speaker approaches the microphone. People clap. Others from the table deliver their speeches, ended each time with a round of applause. BRNO. A packed crowd in Zelný trh (Vegetable Market) square. Soldiers march. Spectators on the Parnas Fountain. Men walk up to the stage that has been decorated with foliage at the front of the crowd. Man delivers a dramatic speech with exaggerated gestures. People in the crowd clap and smile. A sign reads, “AT SIJI HRDINOVÉ BOJOVNICI ZA SVOBODU LIDU SVOBODA PLACENÁ KRVI-SVOBODA VŠEHO LIDU.” A man in uniform takes the podium. Young girls wearing traditional Czech outfits wave small flags above their heads. WS of the crowd. End: “TÝDEN VE FILMU Ceskoslovenská filmová kronika.”