Highlights from my work at the Czech Republic’s Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, 2008-2010
In 2008, I was recruited by the newly appointed Founding Director of the Czech Republic’s Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes to lead the body’s English-language strategic communications initiatives. The Institute was established by the Czech Parliament in 2007 as a taxpayer-funded governmental body with the mandate to make public and academically examine the secret police files and myriad additional security, intelligence and counterintelligence documents from the nation’s period of totalitarian rule, 1948-1989, for the purpose of knowing and coming to terms with the past in order to avoid repeating it.
With the Czech Republic holding the presidency of the European Council during the first half of 2009, we had a rare window of opportunity to raise global awareness, impact public policy and spearhead longlasting educational initiatives. As a result of our efforts, the European Parliament passed a resolution in April 2009 condemning totalitarian crimes and calling for several measures to strengthen public awareness through bodies such as the Platform of European Memory and Conscience.
We also organized the first ever international conference Crimes of the Communist Regimes that took place at the Czech Senate and Office of the Government of the Czech Republic in February 2010, during which we brought together knowledgeable parties from throughout Europe as well as South Africa and China to exchange information and lessons learned. The Conference concluded with the signing of the Declaration on Crimes of Communism.
During the year and a half of my tenure at the Institute, I produced and wrote copy for countless publications and exhibitions, including the unprecedented Prague Through the Lens of the Secret Police that had its U.S. debut at Harvard University in November 2009 and was installed in Washington, DC, New York, and around the globe thanks to a collaboration I initiated with the Czech Centres, the cultural arm of the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I also served as the international spokesperson for the Institute when we received inquiries from the foreign press, and occasionally ghost wrote speeches, statements and presentations.
In my few moments of spare time, I translated projects of significance to me personally, including the publicity materials for the first ever public exhibition of students’ and teachers’ work from the Studio of Applied and Advertising Photography at the Faculty of Art and Design of J.E. Purkyne University, founded by my photography mentor and graduate school professor Prof. Mgr. Miroslav Vojtechovsky.