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Current AffairsVillage commemorates arrival of parachutists who assassinated Reinhard Heydrich
The village of Nehvizdy, in central Bohemia, on Wednesday commemorated the
70th anniversary of the start of Operation Anthropoid, the targeted killing
of the Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich. Two Czechoslovak commandoes who
carried out the killing, landed near the village on the night of 28
December, 1941. More
From the ArchivesA Christmas message from the survivors of Lidice in 1945
With Christmas just round the corner, we break our chronological journey
through the archives this week to go back to Christmas 1945. We’re in
Kročehlavy, a suburb of the industrial town of Kladno near Prague. This
was home to the survivors of one of the horrors of the wartime occupation,
the murder in June 1942 of all the men and most of the children from the
nearby village of Lidice. Only one Lidice family had survived the massacre
intact: Josef Horák was one of two young pilots from the village who had
fled at the beginning of the occupation, and he spent the war serving in
Britain’s Royal Air Force. After the liberation he moved straight back to
Czechoslovakia with his English wife Wynne and their two small children.
The family was a symbol of a new life for Lidice, and over Christmas 1945
Czechoslovak Radio arranged a radio bridge to Britain from a Christmas
party in the Horáks’ living room. Here is a slightly edited version of
that broadcast. 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
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
Czech Books“If I had been a boy, I would have been shot…” Part 6
We have now reached the sixth part in our serialized reading of “If I had
been a boy, I would have been shot…”, the memoirs of Jaroslava
Skleničková. Veronika Hyks has been reading the story of Jaroslava’s
childhood in Lidice, brought to a violent end in June 1942, when the Nazis
decide to wipe away any trace of the village. Jaroslava – or Jaří –
is the youngest of the women of Lidice to be sent to the Ravensbrück
concentration camp, and she is there with her mother and sister, Míla.
Nobody dares to think about what might have happened to the men and the
children of the village. David Vaughan brings us the story so far. More
Czech Books“If I had been a boy, I would have been shot…” Part 5
In Czech Books we hear the fifth part of Jaroslava Skleničková’s moving
memoirs, “If I had been a boy, I would have been shot…”, read by the
Czech-British actress, Veronika Hyks. After the assassination of the Nazi
Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia, the “Butcher of Prague”,
Reinhard Heydrich, the Czech village of Lidice was chosen for complete
destruction on the night from 9-10 June 1942. Jaroslava – or Jaří –
was among 184 women from the village sent to the Ravensbrück concentration
camp. David Vaughan gives us the story so far. More
One on OneJaromíra Kostlánová – still working as a tour guide at the remarkable age of 92
Though 92 years of age, Jaromíra Kostlánová is still working as a tour
guide, introducing the sights of Prague to visitors from around the world.
If that were not remarkable enough, the good-humoured nonagenarian is also
one of the oldest students in the Czech Republic. More
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