Related articles
Current AffairsSurvivors remember first transport to Terezín in winter of 1941
It's exactly seventy years since the first transport of Czechoslovak Jews
left Prague, bound for the garrison town of Terezín, transformed by the
Nazis into a ghetto and concentration camp. Some 140,000 Jewish men, women
and children were sent to Terezín, known as Theresienstadt in German; most
of them were later killed at Auschwitz. A number of events were held this
week bringing together Terezín survivors, one of them on Thursday evening
at the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes. More
SpecialEva Jiránková –A remarkable life
In today’s Special our guest is the charming Eva Jiránková, born in
1921 to a notable Prague family in the early years of the First Republic.
As a junior, Jiránková was a competitive skier and as a young woman she
graced the covers of popular Czech magazines – something of a charmed
life. But that all that ended in September 1942 when her husband, Miloš
Jiránek, was arrested by the Gestapo, and spent the next years in
internment and concentration camps. More
Current AffairsCommonwealth representatives mark Remembrance Day in Prague
The military section of Prague’s Olšany Cemetery filled with foreign
uniforms on Sunday as soldiers of the Commonwealth of Nations marked
Remembrance Day, and commemorated the sacrifices of their countrymen who
lost their lives on Czech territory during the Second World War. More
SpotlightPetschek’s Palace, once the headquarters of the Nazi secret police
If you’re not looking for it then you’ll probably overlook the rather
nondescript building of the Ministry of Industry, near the top of
Prague’s Wenceslas Square. If, however, you are one of the few who read
Prague’s street-side memorial signs, you get the full impact of what the
dirty grey, rough-hewn building called Petschek’s Palace means to modern
Czech history: “In the time of the Nazi occupation,” it reads, “this
building housed the torture chambers of the Gestapo. Fighters for the
freedom of our country fought, suffered and died here. We will never forget
their memory, and will be loyal to their legacy. PEOPLE, BE AWARE”. More
Czech Books“If I had been a boy, I would have been shot…” Part 9
We have reached the ninth and final part of our serialized reading of “If
I had been a boy, I would have been shot…” by Jaroslava Skleničková.
The war is over, and Jaroslava’s account takes us from the traumas of her
return to the present day, and her life with her husband Mirek in the new
Lidice. But first, David Vaughan sums up the story so far. More
Czech Books“If I had been a boy, I would have been shot…” Part 8
In the last few weeks Veronika Hyks has been reading from the memoirs of
Jaroslava Skleničková, an extraordinary story of survival in war. We have
now reached May 1945. After nearly three years in Ravensbrück, the women
of Lidice are now free, although they still face the trauma of returning
home to find that the village has been wiped off the map and that all their
menfolk and nearly all their children are dead. David Vaughan introduces
the eighth episode. More
Czech Books“If I had been a boy, I would have been shot…” Part 7
Over the last few weeks, the actress Veronika Hyks has been bringing us
extracts from Jaroslava Skleničková’s memoirs, “If I had been a boy,
I would have been shot…”. The book tells the moving story of how
Jaroslava was sent with the other women from her home village of Lidice to
the Ravensbrück concentration camp near Berlin, after the Nazis razed the
entire village to the ground in June 1942. The men of the village were shot
in cold blood, and nearly all the children were gassed in Poland, but
throughout their stay in Ravensbrück, the women had no idea of their fate.
As the end of the war drew close, Jaroslava, together with her mother and
sister, were marched out of the camp, together with hundreds of other
women. David Vaughan brings the story up to date. More
+1
+10
