Square in Israel´s Haifa is called after former president Havel

Source: Ceske noviny / By CTK /

Tel Aviv / Prague – A square in Haifa, Israel, was named after former Czech president Vaclav Havel in the presence of Czech Culture Minister Daniel Herman today, the ministry´s spokeswoman Simona Cigankova has told CTK.
Streets and buildings have also been called after Havel elsewhere in the world.

Havel (1936-2011), playwright and dissident under the communist regime, was the last Czechoslovak and the first Czech president in 1989-2003.

The square named after Havel today is in the new Shimon Peres neighbourhood on the Mount Carmel on a slope of which Haifa is situated.

The ceremony was also attended by Mayor of Haifa Yona Yahav and Czech ambassador to Israel Ivo Schwarz. A film on Havel was screened in the local town hall.It was also seen by Czech expatriates.

A street in Jerusalem is to be called after Havel and Havel´s bench is to be unveiled at Tel Aviv University on the 25th anniversary of resumption in 1990 of relations between former Czechoslovakia, to which the Czech Republic has been a successor since 1993.

Gdansk, Poland, has a street called after Havel and a street and the adjacent park in the centre of another Polish town, Opole, also bear his name.

One of the European Parliament´s buildings in Strasbourg is also called after Havel and a Vaclav Havel Library was opened in Paris in November 2013.

Havel´s benches exist in Dublin, Washington, Barcelona and Oxford. The best known building in the Czech Republic called after Havel is the international airport in Prague-Ruzyne.

Written by: ČTK
www.ctk.cz