A Suicidal Spring

Adamec's father and teachers remember the 18-year-old as a bright, sensitive kid who quickly graduated from a fascination with ants and cacti to a sophisticated understanding of electronics. He repaired calculators, mobile phones and even assembled his own computer. "There were moments when he knew more than his teachers," says Pavel Bílek, director of a grade school Adamec attended in his hometown of Humpolec, about 100 km southeast of Prague. But Adamec was also taunted by his classmates, because his mother walked him to school until he was 13 and because of his weight. He withdrew into himself. He came straight home after school and spent his free time improving his Web-design skills. "His only friends were his computer and the Internet," his father says.

His technical prowess eventually got Adamec into trouble. On Feb. 19, police charged him with "incitement" for his alleged involvement with "darkers," a ragtag group of youths who blacked out entire neighborhoods by disrupting power lines. During his last day at school, March 4, a classmate passed around a newspaper article detailing the charges. In his suicide note, Adamec said that he had been tricked into building the darkers' website and that he didn't know they were a "terrorist organization." "All my life I have had problems with this society," he wrote in his suicide note. "I feel as though I don't belong in this era." He concluded that a spectacular suicide was the only way to get "people to search their consciences and try to lessen the evil they commit every day."

After parts of the note were published in the Czech media, Roman Másl read it and "his eyes were glowing when he told me about it," says Lucie Hlavínová, his confidante and schoolmate. "He admired what he did." And then he copied it. Late in the evening of April 1, Másl packed his belongings into two travel bags, arranged his watch, keys and mobile phone on a bedside table and left a sealed envelope for a roommate to deliver to Hlavínová. At the approach of midnight, he snuck outside, doused himself with gasoline and paint thinner and set himself on fire. He was dead within several minutes. A World War II history buff who volunteered countless hours with the Red Cross, Másl, like Adamec, gave a mixture of reasons for his action. He was fiercely opposed to the war in Iraq, writing in his letter to Hlavínová that he would give President George W. Bush "the red card" if he could "get him." He also criticized the Czech health and education systems. But his unrequited love for Hlavínová, a petite brunet with soft brown eyes and a serious face, played a role as well. She says Másl became depressed after he confessed his love last year and she asked for more time. "I am afraid I was probably one of the reasons," Hlavínová says.

Is it farfetched to connect the suicides of two young men — one possibly facing jail, the other lovelorn — to the stress of postcommunist life? Jaroslava Moserová doesn't think so. A senator and physician who treated Palach in the days before he died, she thinks she understands the strain these men were under. She compares the 1989 collapse of communism to tearing down a zoo and letting the predators loose. The past 14 years have been a chaotic, confusing time. But this response, she says, "is futile. During Palach's time there was no other way [to protest]. But now, if you give up your life, you give up a chance to do something." That was also Palach's view, once he realized he was going to die. His original intention had been merely to scar himself. Some three hours before he passed away, Palach left a schoolmate with the following message: "My deed has fulfilled its purpose. But let no one else do it." Thirty-four years later, the communism he hated is gone, but Palach's wishes are still being defied.