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The brutal reprisals for the assassination 60 years ago of the Nazi governor of Bohemia and Moravia - Reinhardt Heydrich - are well known. Two villages - Lidice and Lezaky - were razed to the ground, their inhabitants shot or sent to concentration camps. But almost unknown is the fact that 1,000 Jews from the town of Kolin were rounded up and transported to the camps, never to be seen again. A handful were spared that "special" transport, among them the writer Hana Greenfield, who was later sent to Terezin, Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen.

The war of words between Czech and German politicians over the post-war expulsion of Czechoslovakia's large German minority - known as the Sudeten Germans - has not affected Czech-German relations. At least not according to Czech President Vaclav Havel and his German counterpart Johannes Rau, who paid a one-day visit to Prague on Wednesday. Dita Asiedu reports:

Every year, the Czech Republic awards the Jan Masaryk prize Gratias Agit. The award is presented to people who spread the good name of the Czech Republic abroad, work for the public benefit, and promote good relations between nations. This year, ten people and three organisations received the prestigious award, including Milan Kantor, the founder of charity funds which support Czech culture and Czech expatriates in Australia, Karel Cizek, a Czech translator in Greece and Vaclav Masek, a Czech priest in Romania, and Bohumil Med, the chairman of

As the Czech Republic's membership of the EU draws nearer - with entry expected in 2004 - the country would be expected to be speeding up accession negotiations. But instead the process seems to be slowing down, just as public support for EU membership is also falling. Vladimir Tax has the details.

In modern European history, Samizdat - the writing, printing and distribution of literature that was suppressed and banned by the censors during Communism - represented a mass struggle for freedom that was often punished with years of imprisonment and even death. A major exhibition documenting this struggle will open at the National Museum in Prague on Thursday, called "Samizdat - Alternative Culture in Central and Eastern Europe from the 1960s to the 1980s". Dita Asiedu was at an early viewing of the exhibition:

For the third time in his political career, Vaclav Klaus has a strong chance of becoming Czech Prime Minister. Such is the delicate balance of power on the political scene, that even if his right-of-centre Civic Democrats fail to win next week's parliamentary elections, they could still find themselves wielding considerable influence after the poll. Mr Klaus has also been tipped as a future president. The guru of the economic reforms of the early 90s, Vaclav Klaus is loved and hated in equal measure with his blend of popular rhetoric and economic

With just over a week to go before the general election in the Czech Republic, political parties are jostling for voters in all possible ways. But how effective are their current pre-election campaigns? Alena Skodova tries to find out:

Czechs are preparing to vote in June's general elections. Ten years ago - at about this time - people were also getting ready to vote in general elections -elections which would inevitably lead to the break up of the Czechoslovak federation in 1993. A few days ago the Czech Academy of Sciences organized a round table debate in which historians could consider the matter with hindsight. One of the prominent Czech historians present was Jan Rychlik, who was a senior government advisor at the time of the break up, and I asked him whether the Czech-Slovak

As you may know, an international marathon of readings from Czech and Slovak literature started on Friday in Prague, and it is continuing in a kind of global relay race at 17 Czech Centres in 15 countries around the world. Alena Skodova has the details:

On Saturday, International Children's Day was celebrated throughout the Czech Republic. Towns and communities organised various events for children and hundreds of competitions and shows were prepared for kids and their parents in museums, zoos or castles. Some programmes were also arranged especially for disadvantaged children and children living in orphanages. Unfortunately, Czech children's homes are becoming more and more crowded as Pavla Horakova reports.