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Current AffairsRoma commemorate victims at Auschwitz-Birkenau
On Monday hundreds of Roma, including representatives of Czech Romani
groups, visited the site of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau,
southern Poland to commemorate thousands of victims of the Roma Holocaust.
The ceremony was held on the 60th anniversary of the darkest hour of the
Roma Holocaust when, on the night of August 2-3, 3,000 Roma were sent to
the gas chambers as the liberation forces drew nearer.
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Current AffairsMilena Jesenska: the legacy of an extraordinary Czech journalist 60 years on
This week is the 60th anniversary of the death of one of the great figures
of 20th century Czech journalism, Milena Jesenska, whose writings offer
today's readers deep insights into Czechoslovakia between the wars. My
colleague David Vaughan has taken a particular interest in her work.
David, what is Milena Jesenska most remembered for?
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ArtsArts news, presentation of Czech Culture in Budapest
In this week's edition of the Arts, Dita Asiedu we'll be looking at a
presentation of Czech culture that is part of the International Cultural
Festival of Candidate Countries to the EU currently taking place in
Budapest, and two exhibitions in Prague that have been extended due to
public interest...
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Current AffairsA detective story: a school project to find Jewish children rescued from Prague in 1939
Many Radio Prague listeners will be familiar with the story of Sir Nicholas
Winton, the British man in Prague who managed to save 669 Jewish children
at the beginning of the Nazi occupation in 1939, by getting them visas to
Britain. For nearly 50 years, Sir Nicholas - now 94 - told no-one about
what he'd done, not even his own wife. When the story finally emerged, it
was made into an award-winning film called "The Power of Good".
A DVD of the film has just been released for schools, containing more than
an hour of extra material which could help to track down four hundred of
Sir Nicholas's "children" whose fate since their rescue has
remained unknown. David Vaughan has been speaking to the film's director,
Matej Minac, and also two of the people Nicholas Winton rescued - Eva
Krusinova and Alice Klimova, about the project, which aims to involve
Czech schoolchildren in the hunt.
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WitnessJiri Brady - my first introduction to religious education
In the Czech countryside there is a tradition that each family slaughters a
pig once or twice a year, and lives on the meat for much of the time in
between. Although they were Jewish, the Brady family, who ran the general
stores in the little town of Nove Mesto na Morave, were no exception.
Until the arrival of Hitler, they never felt any different from their
neighbours and had never shown much interest in religion. Nothing in their
lives prepared them for the horror of what was to come with the
occupation. The entire family was murdered in the camps, and Jiri Brady,
who was thirteen when he was sent to the Terezin ghetto, was the only one
to survive the Holocaust. Here he remembers back to the days before the
Germans arrived, and with humour recalls his first introduction to
religious education.
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Czech MusicFritz Weiss and a series of miraculous wartime jazz recordings
Prague's Jewish Museum recently released a CD that is nothing short of
miraculous. At the height of the Nazi occupation of Prague during the
Second World War, the Czech Jewish jazz musician, Fritz Weiss, made nearly
thirty recordings with the Emil Ludvik Orchestra. Weiss was musical leader
of the band and also made all the arrangements. Amazingly, he continued to
work with the band even after he was sent to the Terezin ghetto. In Encore
today, we'll be telling the story of these extraordinary swing recordings,
made literally in the shadow of the swastika.
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Current Affairs"Hana's Suitcase": a tragic story from the Holocaust with a message of hope
An extraordinary book about the Holocaust has just been published in
Prague. It's the story of a suitcase - a suitcase that belonged to a young
Czech Jewish girl called Hana Bradyova. Hana was one of tens of thousands
of Jewish Czechs who were sent to the ghetto in Terezin during the Nazi
occupation. David Vaughan picks up the story of "Hana's
Suitcase".
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Current AffairsKhamoro: establishing the facts of the "unknown Holocaust"
Every year, for the last five years, the Khamoro festival has brought the
vibrant culture of the Roma to the streets of Prague. It's a festival
dominated of course by the exhilarating and heart-rending music of the
Roma. But there's also a serious side to the festival, as Rob Cameron now
reports.
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Current AffairsHolocaust Remembrance Day commemorated
As in many other countries around the world, Holocaust Remembrance Day was
yesterday commemorated in the Czech Republic. In recent years the day has
been marked in a different way here, where it is now characterised by
special cooperation between the Jewish and Roman communities.
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