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One on OneDocumentary filmmaker Martin Dušek on why his native region continues to inspire him
Martin Dušek, who often works with co-director Ondřej Provazník, is a
two-time winner of the main prize at the Jihlava International Documentary
Film Festival, the Czech Republic’s most prestigious documentary award.
His films “A Town Called Hermitage” and “Coal in the Soul” were
both shot in the former Sudetenland in North Bohemia, a border region whose
Sudeten German inhabitants were expelled from Czechoslovakia after the war.
Martin Dušek ’s latest film deals with his own Sudeten German heritage
– in a humorous and provocative way. I caught up the director to speak
about why this part of country continues to inspire him and how he
discovered his love for making documentaries. More
SpotlightSvitavy – the birthplace of Oskar Schindler
You are not very likely to wander into Svitavy by chance. Located on both
the major road and railway line connecting Moravia and eastern Bohemia, for
most people Svitavy is just a name on their itinerary. But if you do come
and take a closer look, you’ll find a little town proud of its past and
working for a better future. Once an important town for Moravia’s textile
industry, re-populated after the expulsion of Svitavy’s German speaking
inhabitants, it only recently showed its pride in perhaps its most famous
native personality – Oskar Schindler. More
From the ArchivesSeptember 1938: last-minute appeals for moderation as Hitler builds upforces on the Czech border
This week we continue our look into the dramatic events in Czechoslovakia
just before World War Two. By the summer of 1938, Hitler’s Germany was
demanding nothing less than the immediate annexation of the entire
Sudetenland – all parts of Bohemia and Moravia with a German speaking
majority. The Sudeten German Party had made big gains among German speakers
in local elections earlier that year, and the Nazi rhetoric of their
leaders was unambiguous. More
From the ArchivesThe battle for the airwaves breaks out
In the last couple of weeks we have looked at the growing tensions in
Czechoslovakia in the second half of the 1930s, as pressure from Nazi
Germany grew. The period leading up to the Munich Agreement in September
1938, when Britain and France gave Hitler the green light to annex vast
areas of Czechoslovakia, is extremely well documented in the Czech Radio
archives. The archives also reveal that this was one of the first
international diplomatic crises to be played out on the airwaves. Through
radio, the Munich crisis became a battle of international propaganda and
public opinion, with greater immediacy than ever seen before. More
From the ArchivesRising tensions in the Sudetenland
“Hello, hello! Prague, Czechoslovakia calling. Good evening ladies and
gentlemen”: Radio Prague welcomes listeners to its English programmes
back in 1937. The tone may be a little more formal, but it is not so
different from today. Yet much has changed since the troubled times of the
later 1930s. Nazi Germany was breathing down Czechoslovakia’s neck and
tensions in the mainly German-speaking Sudetenland were rising rapidly. The
young British historian Hugh Seton Watson was in Czechoslovakia in
September that year, attending an international summer school for students
from across Central Europe. Talking to Radio Prague, he was far from
optimistic about the country’s future. More
One on OneAndreas Wiedemann on resettling the Czech borders
German journalist and historian Andreas Wiedemann is the author of a book
about the resettlement of the Sudetenland following the expulsion of the
German population at the end of World War II. The title translates from
German as ‛Come with us to the borderland: resettlement and new settlers
in the former Sudetenland 1945-1952.’ Unlike the expulsion, the
resettlement has been given scant coverage although the consequences still
scar large parts of the country. I asked him why he seized upon the
subject.
More
Current AffairsOpt-out granted, but not all share Klaus fears over Sudeten Germans
President Václav Klaus said he wanted an opt-out from the EU Charter of
Fundamental Rights to shield Czech courts from European law, mentioning in
particular the prospect of property claims from Sudeten Germans – ethnic
Germans who were expelled en masse from what was then Czechoslovakia after
the war. But not everyone in the Czech Republic shares Mr Klaus’s
concerns, in fact some organisations highlight the country’s German
heritage as a positive thing. Rob Cameron visited the former Sudeten city
of Ústí nad Labem, and spoke to Ondřej Matějka from the NGO Anti-Komplex.
More
SpotlightThe Four Corners of the Czech Republic, Pt. II: The Sudetenland
On the one hand, marking off one’s territory is said to be a basic human
trait, and on the other, there is nothing that comes so naturally to people
as defying a boundary and exploring the other side. The Czech/German/Polish
tri-border is an excellent example of this. More
Letter from PragueA poignant meeting between past and present
I made a special trip to a local church near Mariánské Lázně recently.
The occasion was an annual mass to commemorate the church’s patron saint.
Such things are not my usual scene. The service was in both Czech and
German. And the event has become a sort of annual meeting point for the
Sudeten Germans forced to leave their homes in the surrounding villages
after WWII and the Czechs that followed them into the mostly empty frontier
region.
More
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