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Dr. Paul Ort’s mother and grandfather were murdered by the Nazis in reprisals that followed the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. A childhood friend of Vaclav Havel’s, the then Pavel Ort escaped from Communist Czechoslovakia via Tunisia after securing a medical degree against the odds. He went on to have a very successful career in the US, where he is still practising at the age of 82.

Veselé Vánoce! Hello and a very Merry Christmas to you all from Radio Prague! I’m Brian Kenety, and I’ll be your guide for today’s special programme, in which we explore how the holiday is traditionally celebrated here in the Czech lands.

Joy Bellefontaine is Acadian French and proud of it, but having married a Czech husband and living in the Czech Republic for nearly 20 years she admits her family’s Christmas contains a mix of local and Acadian traditions. Tom McEnchroe, visited her to find out how foreigners living in the country celebrate their Christmas.

Lodged just before Christmas, December 22nd may at first seem a rather unremarkable day. However, it marks the anniversary of the first recorded Christmas tree being introduced on Czech soil. Today Christmas trees have not only established themselves in nearly every household but also dominate many town squares. This despite an initial struggle against Czech revivalists, who saw it as a German import.

His ancestors were among the most influential nobility in Bohemia, but unlike many others, they chose to remain in Czechoslovakia after the communist takeover. Now Děpolt Czernin is doing his best to protect a famous Czech tradition – “Ježíšek”. He has founded a society devoted to bringing the likeness of baby Jesus back into the public sphere.

As a war crimes investigator in former Yugoslavia Vladimír Dzuro took part in the exhumation of a notorious mass grave in which 200 massacred Croats had been dumped. He was later involved in the arrest of one of those responsible, delivering the first European war crimes indictment handed down by an international tribunal since the end of WWII. He has captured his sometimes hair-raising experiences in the book The Investigator: Demons of the Balkan War.

This year the Czech Republic is celebrating many special anniversaries. Yet despite the importance of commemorating a hundred years since the Czechs gained independence, the 50 years since the 1968 invasion and more, there is and always has been one anniversary that overshadows the others in terms of political statement – November 17th.

Dining is one of the most important manifestations of material culture. At state dinners the quality of the porcelain and glass used represents a given state. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the founding of Czechoslovakia, we have prepared a photo gallery, documenting the porcelain and glass dining sets used by Czechoslovak and later Czech presidents. They did not necessarily change with every administration, changes in the porcelain, glass and silverware used were usually related to a change of state symbols. So how was the Czech Republic

September 28th is a public holiday in the Czech Republic. It is the feast day of St. Wenceslas, the patron saint of Bohemia, and commemorates his death in 935.

British author Nigel Peace has just published a powerful love story set against the background of the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact. The novel is based on the author’s own personal experience of being torn apart from his first love by the communist regime. I spoke to Nigel Peace shortly before his new book came out, about his memories of the time and what made him write his soul-searching novel half a century later.