Exhibition: Threads of Memories

November 27, 2024 – January 31, 2025 (closed on 24 Dec – 1 Jan), Klementinum, Ground floor (gate A)
Mon - Sat 9 am - 7 pm in the NL Opening Hours
Admission to the exhibitionfor the NL registered users and those with a one-day Admission Ticket

The exhibition presents everyday life in the Soviet camps in an unconventional way, from arrest to return to freedom. The main means through which the visitor can learn the details of the individual stories are photographs of unique objects and other exhibits that the women brought with them from the Gulag camps. The ball gown in which one of the women was arrested and spent many years in labor camps, embroideries, drawings, baby dolls, threads adapted for slicing bread – all this is the main motif of the 24 panels that make up the exhibition. The display panels are complemented by several original objects that are physically presented to the visitors.
The exhibition has been prepared by the Memorial and Gulag.cz organizations in association with the Slavonic Library. You can visit it on the ground floor of the National Library of the CR at the Klementinum from November 27, 2024, to January 31, 2025. After that, its display is planned at other sites throughout the Czech Republic.
An estimated 20 million prisoners were held in the Gulag, out of which approximately 13 percent were women. In 1941, women represented up to a quarter of the total number of prisoners. They suffered from demanding work, harsh conditions, violence from the guards, separation from their families, and in many cases their children were taken from them in the camps. Stories and objects selected according to individual themes illustrate the arrest, transport to the camp, life in the camps, relationships and fates after returning to freedom. They are a warning testimony of the horrors of the Soviet totalitarian regime.
The display is based on the original exhibition "Matěrial", which was organized in 2021 by the Memorial organization on the basis of its museum collection, before its liquidation by court in Russia. Memorial, in cooperation with Gulag.cz, adapted the exhibition for the Czech environment and supplemented it with references to the stories of Czech women who also went through the hell of the Gulag. For the first time, objects that were once made by Czech female prisoners of Soviet camps will also be exhibited.