Museum of Communism, Prague

Behind these doors is Prague’s Museum of Communism, devoted to the communist regime that shaped Czechoslovakia after the war, especially in Prague. Its story runs from the communist seizure of power in February 1948 to the Velvet Revolution in 1989. American businessman Glenn Spicker founded the museum, assembling artifacts and asking filmmaker Jan Kaplan to shape its narrative.

Inside, history becomes tangible through reconstructions of a classroom, a shop marked by scarce goods, and a secret-police interrogation room. The exhibition also traces propaganda, censorship, policing, political trials, work camps, culture, and the routines of daily life. Its curators deliberately set hopes for a better society beside state violence and the lived reality of ordinary people.