Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic have never fully come to terms with the Slánský trial
On 26 September 2022, filmmaker
Ruth Zylberman presented at the French Institute in Prague her latestdocumentary film The
Trial: Prague 1952. Several reels of the 1952 Slánský showtrial, hours of new filming and audio material, werediscovered in 2018. On their basis she revisits this trial in amoving and personal take by focusing on three of the accused: RudolfSlánský, Rudolf Margolius, and Artur London, as well as on theirfamilies. As she explained in the discussion after the screening andin the academic debate that followed the next morning at the FrenchCenter for Research in Social Sciences (CeFReS), her aim was topresent these “radioactive” visual archives to the public and,even more importantly, to turn them, by restituting the humanity ofits protagonists, into the sort of material that can be appropriatedby a wide audience.