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Current AffairsPrague & Lima mark 90 years of diplomatic relations with donation of historic tank
Prague and Lima have been marking the 90th anniversary of diplomatic
relations this week through a number of events, including a ceremony in
Lima preceding the return of an historic Czechoslovak-built tank to the
Czech Republic. The LTP 38, as it is known, was built for Peru in the
1930s, designed specifically for high terrain. Originally, there were 24 of
the armoured fighting vehicles. More
Czech Books“Sala’s Gift”: a whole war in a tin box
You will probably not have heard of Gross Sarne, Brande, Blechhammer or
Schatzlar, but these are places that should be remembered. They were all
Nazi slave labour camps in World War Two. The last on that list, Schatzlar,
or Žacléř as it is known in Czech, was in what is now the Czech
Republic, in the part of north-eastern Bohemia annexed by the German Reich
in 1938. Few people in this country, even among the inhabitants of
Žacléř itself, know that the camp even existed, but a new book should
help to put that right. The daughter of one of the survivors has just been
in the Czech Republic, to launch the Czech edition of her book “Sala’s
Gift”. The book tells her mother’s story, drawing richly from Sala’s
own memories and from several hundred letters that, against all odds,
survived the war. David Vaughan tells the story. More
Czech LifeAn Englishwoman who has lived in Prague for over six decades – ‘war bride’ Ivy Kovandová – Part II
In the previous episode of Czech Life, we brought you the first part of the
life story of Ivy Kovandová – one of the so-called war brides, English
women who got married to Czech soldiers or pilots during World War II and
then followed their husbands back to their native Czechoslovakia. Today, it
is time for the second part of Ivy’s story – which starts with her
arrival in her husband Oldřich Kovanda’s home country. More
One on OneJan Kaplan: Operation Anthropoid more appreciated as years go by
As part of an exhibition linked to the 70th anniversary of the Lidice
massacre in June, Prague's Dox Centre for Contemporary Art is currently
hosting a video installation by the London-based Czech documentary maker
and editor Jan Kaplan entitled 10:35. The name refers to the time of day
that the operation to assassinate the Nazi governor of Bohemia and Moravia
– which preceded the Lidice atrocity – reached its climax in a Prague
suburb on May 27, 1942. The UK-based Czechoslovak paratroopers who carried
out the attack later met their deaths in a church in the city. More
Czech LifeAn Englishwoman who has lived in Prague for over six decades – ‘war bride’ Ivy Kovandová
Ivy Kovandová is one of the few remaining so-called war brides in the
Czech Republic. ‘War brides’ are Englishwomen who married Czechoslovak
pilots or soldiers stationed in the UK during WWII – an estimated 10,000
soldiers and about 2,500 pilots from Czechoslovakia fought alongside the
allies, and many of them married local women. Some of those women
accompanied their husbands back to their native land after the war. But
most left Czechoslovakia due to the strain that the arrival of the
communist regime placed on their lives, or simply because they felt lost
and homesick. Ivy Kovandová, however, still lives in her cozy apartment in
Prague’s Vršovice neighborhood and says she has never even considered
leaving. Just a few weeks ago, she celebrated her 90th birthday. I recently
visited Ivy at her home, where she told me all about her adventurous life
over cake and coffee. 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
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
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