Palach, Rijeka

Club (Palach) was initially founded in 1968 by the Rijeka Student Association (mainly students of the Medical Faculty, Rijeka). The name of this famous student club was dedicated to Jan Palach (Aug 1948- Jan 1969), a Czech student of history and political economy at the Charles University during the Prague Spring. He committed suicide by self-immolation as a political protest, a symbolic event often taken to be central to events which led to the fall of the Iron Curtain.