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SpecialDefiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezin
Late 1943. The cold barracks of the Terezin ghetto stand against an autumn
sky. Although deportations to the camp had come to a standstill earlier in
the year, the overcrowded conditions, disease and hunger still remained.
As
did the ever present threat of the gas chambers. But on this occasion the
usual sounds carried through Terezin's bleak corridors were interrupted by
very different strains. More
ArtsTickets on sale for Prague Spring 60th anniversary celebrations
Every May, thousands of music lovers from around the world flock to the
Czech capital for the Czech Republic's biggest and most renowned classical
music festival - the Prague Spring. 2006 will be no exception, featuring
some of the world's leading orchestras, ensembles and soloists at
impressive venues like Prague's Rudolfinum, the Bertramka, or the
Municipal House. Tickets went on sale this week.
More
Current AffairsBreathing new life into Terezin
The entire garrison town of Terezin served as a ghetto for Czech and
European Jews during the Second World War and housed a Gestapo-run prison.
Tens of thousands died within its walled fortresses, which were taken over
by the Czechoslovak army after the war, and then abandoned in 1996. The
debate over how best to both preserve -- and breathe new life -- into the
northern Bohemian town took on a new urgency after it was devastated by
floods in 2002. But as Brian Kenety reports, Terezin is still waiting for
a miracle. More
Current AffairsCould Terezin house a European Holocaust Centre?
Few places have such an eerie atmosphere as the little walled garrison town
of Terezin, north of Prague. During the Second World War the Nazis turned
the entire town into a Jewish ghetto; 155,000 people passed through its
gates and of those who survived the grim conditions, the great majority
later died in the death camps of the east. Today this dark legacy still
hangs over Terezin. If you walk down its empty streets, the ghosts of the
past often seem more real than the life of the town in the present day.
Finding ways of reviving Terezin in a way that is sensitive to its tragic
past is proving a huge problem. David Vaughan has been following the
latest proposal put forward by the governor of the North Bohemian region,
Jiri Sulc.
More
Current AffairsPetiton drive launched to ban Communist name and symbols
A group of senators and like-minded journalists, artists and other public
figures is petitioning for a change in the penal code that would outlaw
the promotion of Communism and Nazism as criminal ideologies. The group
also wants to make it illegal for political groupings to include the word
'Communist' in their names. More
SpotlightA former Gestapo prison recalls the horrors of World War Two
In today's Spotlight, we take a tour of the Small Fortress of Terezin in
North Bohemia, which - together with the Large Fortress, a kilometre away
- was built to defend Bohemia against the Prussian Army. But the
fortresses were never used in battle and the Small Fortress was used as an
army prison and a prison for political prisoners. However, it is mainly
known from the period from 1940-1945, when it was a Nazi German Gestapo
prison.
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