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One on OneInternational Radio Day with prize-winning journalist Jan Bednář
The fortunes of journalist Jan Bednář only beginning to unfold when he
was kicked out of the School of Economics after signing the anti-communist
Charter 77 and compelled to work as a night watchman for several years. The
son of a dissident imprisoned for publishing samizdat literature, the
regime was glad to be rid of him when he applied to leave the country in
the early 80s. He went to England and was able to complete his studies in
politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford University, from where he
proceeded to join the Czechoslovak service of the BBC in 1985. More
Czech BooksCharles Ota Heller: a soldier at the age of nine
In the last days of World War II, nine-year-old Ota Heller picked up a
revolver and fired it at a German soldier. He did not wait to see if the
man was still alive. For decades afterwards he talked to no one about the
experience, and only recently has Ota Heller – or Charles Ota Heller, as
he is now called – felt able to return to his memories of the war,
collecting them in his book “Out of Prague”. In this week’s Czech
Books he talks to David Vaughan. More
From the ArchivesA. J. P. Taylor: faith in socialist Czechoslovakia
A. J. P. Taylor (1906-1990) was one of the best-known and most influential
British historians of the 20th century. He is remembered in particular for
his provocative left-wing political views and his conviction that German
history made the country uniquely inclined towards aggression and
expansionism. This made him an ardent opponent of attempts to rebuild
Germany’s economy after the war, and a strong supporter of
Czechoslovakia’s growing alliance with the Soviet Union. In July 1946,
just after elections which saw the Communists emerge as the strongest
single party, Taylor visited Czechoslovakia. More
From the ArchivesWill Lawther and J. B. Priestley: the British left and post-war Czechoslovakia
During World War II, the political left in Britain and the United States
had come to identify itself strongly with the fate of the Czech nation.
This was partly a reaction to the shame of Munich in 1938, when
Czechoslovakia had been abandoned by her allies, and it was reinforced by
the role played by the British miners in launching the Lidice Shall Live
movement. This had followed the Nazis’ destruction of the Czech mining
village of Lidice in June 1942. In this spirit the president of the British
Miners’ Federation Will Lawther, came at the end of 1945 to lay a wreath
at the grave of the men of Lidice. More
From the ArchivesAfter 1945: something like normality
In From the Archives this week we carry on where we left off at the end of
August in our chronological journey through the Czech Radio archives. We had
reached the point just after the end of World War Two; after the initial
euphoria, the hard work of rebuilding the country began: not least at the
Czechoslovak Radio building itself, which had been shot to pieces in the
Prague Uprising and received a direct hit from a German aerial torpedo. More
From the ArchivesNovember 1945: homeward bound
In November 1945, six months after the end of World War II, the units that
had taken part in liberating Czechoslovakia began their official
withdrawal. Various ceremonies were held, first on November 15, to say
farewell to the Red Army troops, who had fought their way in bitter
fighting through Slovakia all the way to Prague. Then a few days later, on
November 20, the withdrawal began of the American units that had liberated
Western Bohemia. More
From the ArchivesPrague Uprising: “Do not let Prague be destroyed!”
In last week’s From the Archives we heard about radio’s central role in
the Prague Uprising against the German occupation at the end of World War
II. Not only did the signal for the uprising to begin come over the air,
but the radio also helped to co-ordinate the fighting. It also played a
third role. At the time the Red Army was already approaching Prague from
the east, and General Patton’s Third Army was in Plzeň just a few dozen
kilometres to the west. Many of those fighting in the streets of Prague
were untrained and had few weapons, and the scale of the German resistance,
especially the SS units, took many by surprise. The radio appealed to the
Americans, British and Russians for help. More
From the Archives“Calling all Czechs!”: the Prague Uprising begins
“Calling all Czechs! Come quickly to our aid! Calling all Czechs!” It
is May 5 1945, and with these words Prague radio appeals to Czechs to join
the uprising against the German occupation. This was to be one of the last
European battles of World War Two and the greatest moment in the history of
Czechoslovak Radio. For some time radio staff had been working secretly
with the Czech underground to prepare the ground for the uprising. Their
radio appeal marked the beginning of the battle. In the confusion of the
following three days with street battles going on around the city, radio
was to play an important role, and the radio building also became the focus
of much of the fighting. On some recordings that survive you can still
clearly hear gunfire in the background. More
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