2013-05-09
This year’s Trutnov Woodstock is dedicated to the victims of the forced post-war expulsion. We are started to sell tickets for the same price as last year. Third year in a row we are not putting the price up
Dear squaw, brave co-warriors and trackers... In the May time of the end of the clash of weapons of World War II celebrations and in the month of seedlings we are drumming out of our foothill camp full of blooming flowers and trees this dedication and opening presale tickets. Cult Open Air Festival "Trutnov 1987-2013", a celebration of joy, summer and meetings in the open air, which will be held from 15/8 to 18/8, will this year be dedicated to the victims of the forced post-war expulsion. A few years ago we dedicated the festival to Sir Winton, who saved hundreds of Jewish children from the gas chambers during the World War II. This year, we want to remind the post-war victims from "the other side" of the wild expulsions. The life stories of ordinary people, who were often guilty just by being of a different nationality. In many places in our country there were post-war killings, violence and injustice on innocent people. Greed and revenge played a significant role, just like the annexation of Sudetenland by Germany, which drove many Czechs out of their homes, not to mention the Jews. "In the Sudetenland in the times after the displacement basically grew up a whole generation of people who lived in somebody else’s houses, woke up in somebody else’s duvets and ate from somebody else’s plates. Post-war frustration is understandable, motivations can be understood, but we reject collective guilt, " is the common language of our wigwams.
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As you know, since its beginning, the Czech Woodstock has always had not only a musical mission, but also an opinion. Moreover, in the whole twenty-six years we have organized it in the former Sudetenland, which was strongly affected by the post-war expulsion that changed the landscape and the structure of its populations. Traces of displacement are still visible today in the minds of people up to such extend that in some strange way it even influenced the presidential election.
Trutnov Woodstock features not only music and dramaturgy with distinctive twists and humour, but also interesting visitors and various dedications. It honours tradition and mentions the various personalities or events from history that are close to us. The common meeting is not just about music, but also opinion. We believe that the programme diversity, ecumenical services and Indian or Hare Krishna camps, accompanied by the various non-profit organizations are close to your hearts. Through this year’s dedication we want to remind everybody of what happened in the places where the festival is being held, as well as elsewhere in the Czech borderland and the Sudetenland after the World War II. Trutnov used to be called Trautenau and, like the rest of the Sudetenland, was affected by displacement, separation from roots and unemployment. Czech borderland was forcibly inhabited by people without links to the place that mostly came only to loot and plunder and after a few years moved on. After the expulsion almost nothing belonged to anyone, and therefore the post-communist restitutions were minimal.
During our journeys through the countryside in search of a new place for the festival we still recognize that the scars in the landscape after the expulsion can still be seen today. For example, a few kilometres from where the festival is held, on the border of the Giant Mountains National Park, there used to be a village of Sklenářovice, Glasendorf in German, which is now vanished. What used to be a thriving community before the war, with more than 200 inhabitants, a mill, two pubs and a school today, is now reduced to just some overgrown foundations of houses, fruit trees blooming in the spring, a stone cross and stone bridge. Houses that were still standing in the fifties were blown up by the army. Only one man lives there today in very alternative condition – a herder with his flock of goats.
