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You may remember an interview we broadcast last year with Zdenek Macal, when he was appointed chief conductor of the greatest of all Czech orchestras, the Czech Philharmonic. Despite a huge international reputation after many years with top orchestras abroad, Macal was not particularly well known in his native Prague. The Czech Philharmonic had been going through a difficult few years, with financial problems, internal disputes and even fears that its artistic standards were suffering. So Zdenek Macal inherited a difficult job. Today, just a few months

In recent years Czech versions of hit television programmes from the West have proved hugely popular. Among them are "The Weakest Link" and the latest big success, the Czech version of "Pop Idol". But the first of this wave of international programmes to make a big impact in the Czech Republic was "Milionar", which you may know as "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?". Jan Flemr appeared on "Milionar" three years ago, stalling at the final question but still taking home half a million crowns. Here he recalls the experience, and the question which stumped

We don't usually use archive recordings for Witness, but today we'll make an exception. This year is the 65th anniversary of the tragic day in March 1939, when German troops marched into Prague, beginning six years of Nazi occupation. At the time, Franta Kocourek was one of Czechoslovak Radio's star reporters. Four days after Bohemia and Moravia had been declared a "Protectorate of the German Reich", he reported live on the huge military parade that the Germans had organized on Prague's Wenceslas Square. He made no attempt to conceal his sense

Maxim Velcovsky is one of the Czech Republic's best young artists, though it wasn't his work but his appearance in a massive advertising campaign for mobile phones which brought him to widespread public attention. Maxim has a very distinctive look: he is tall with huge "afro"-style hair and was, while the ad campaign was at its height in 2001, one of the best-known faces in the country. He has also appeared in TV ads made in the Czech Republic for other markets around the world. Here Maxim Velcovsky describes the experience of having his face all

It is exactly 75 years since the first Czech set foot on the Antarctic. His name was Vaclav Vojtech, and he travelled with an expedition organized by the American Richard Byrd. Vojtech returned a national hero. To this day there is a Czech presence on the White Continent, with a research station on Nelson Island in the South Shetlands; later this year a new Czech polar station is to be shipped to James Ross Island in the same area. One person who has become obsessed with the Antarctic is Dagmar Havlova, the one-time dissident and sister-in-law

Pavel Theiner was eleven when his family left Prague in 1968. From his London exile Pavel's father became one of the most prominent figures in the Czech émigré literary community, and Pavel grew up unable to return to the country where he had spent his childhood. But today he is back in his native Prague with his wife and four-year-old daughter, working as a media researcher. Here he remembers his grandfather, a man who has remained important in Pavel's life, even though he died when Pavel was still small.

Ever since he was a teenager Zbynek Svehla has been a passionate triathlete. Triathlon is possibly the most grueling sports discipline of all, combining swimming, cycling and running, and the sport's greatest challenge is the annual Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii. When Zbynek broke his back ten years ago, losing the use of his legs, he didn't give up his dream of completing Ironman. He was at last able to take part in 2001 - using a handcycle for the cycling section, and an adapted wheelchair for the marathon. He went home disappointed, after failing

In the days of the Cold War people who came into regular contact with foreigners were kept under close police scrutiny and were put under intense pressure to report on details of their meetings. In the early 1960s the South African musicologist Geoffrey Chew spent a year studying in the city of Brno. His landlady was a highly cultivated woman, who spoke several languages. She was also a reluctant police informer, but she got round this rather distasteful problem in a neat and elegant way. On a recent trip back to Brno, Geoffrey Chew remembered

At the end of January it will be exactly a year since Vaclav Havel stepped down after thirteen years as president, first of Czechoslovakia and then the Czech Republic. One person who spent a lot of time with Havel during his early days as president just after the fall of communism, is the journalist Jiri Vejvoda, now Czech Radio's chief producer of arts programmes. Here he remembers some of the insights he gained at the time.

Juraj Szanto is a medical journalist, and has had a long career in Prague as a dentist. He originally comes from the part of southern Slovakia that was annexed by Hungary just before the Second World War. When the war broke out, his father was sent to the Russian Front and his mother was imprisoned in Budapest for her links with the resistance. Juraj was fifteen when his mother was released in 1944, but this was just the time when the Nazis began to transport Hungarian Jews to the death camps in the east. Juraj and his mother were among thousands