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“Calling all Czechs! Come quickly to our aid! Calling all Czechs!” It is May 5 1945, and with these words Prague radio appeals to Czechs to join the uprising against the German occupation. This was to be one of the last European battles of World War Two and the greatest moment in the history of Czechoslovak Radio. For some time radio staff had been working secretly with the Czech underground to prepare the ground for the uprising. Their radio appeal marked the beginning of the battle. In the confusion of the following three days with street battles

By 1944 Czechoslovakia’s liberation no longer seemed a distant prospect, as Nazi Germany’s enemies closed in from East and West. On June 6 1944 over 130,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy. Later that same day, the Allied forces’ Supreme Commander Dwight Eisenhower, took to the airwaves:

The scene is Prague. It is just before midday on St Valentine’s Day, February 14, 1945. An air-raid siren begins to wail. In previous weeks, Czechs have got used to the sirens, as Allied bombers have launched raid after raid on German cities, but so far the German-occupied Czech capital has been spared. This time it is different. Not long after the sirens stop a fleet of American Flying Fortresses appears in the skies. 152 tons of bombs are dropped on the densely populated centre of the city. The result is 701 people killed and over a thousand

A small group of people commemorated on Saturday the victims of the “Brno death march” during which hundreds of ethnic Germans died who had been expelled from the city at the end of May 1945, in the wake of WWII. Twelve people took part in the event, walking some 30 km along the route of the march to Pohořelice, towards the Austrian border. Organizers said rainy weather probably deterred more participants.

On May 30 and 31, 1945, some 20,000 Brno’s German-speaking citizens were rounded up by Czech paramilitaries and walked off to the border. Estimates on the number of victims vary between 1,600 and 10,000. This and several other outbursts of anti-German hatred preceded an organized and more humane expulsion of around three million ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia.

On Wednesday, archaeologists found a skull near the site of an alleged mass grave where some 15 Germans are said to have been murdered by Czech locals at the end of World War II, in the town of Dobronín, in the Jihlava region. According to criminal police investigators, the victims’ relatives and descendants in Germany welcome the Czech effort to shed light on post-war murders of Germans on Czech lands. The search locations were determined on the basis of scientific measurements of soil, as well as documents gathered by the police. Last summer, anthropologists found the bodies of at least 13 victims in the nearby town of Budínka. Criminal police are investigating the case.

Czech political and military figures commemorated the 66th anniversary of the end of the Second World War on Sunday. A ceremony was held at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on the hill of Vítkov, in Prague. The playing of the national anthem was followed by a minute of silence and a three-gun salute. Soldiers and politicians then laid wreathes in memory of the fallen. President Václav Klaus conferred honorary names upon four army units and later in the day appointed new generals of the army and customs administration.

In the run-up to the 66th anniversary of the end of WWII Czech public television featured a documentary throwing more light on events that have received little publicity in the past – the atrocities committed on German civilians in post-war Czechoslovakia. The subject has been avoided for years, but film director David Vondráček says Czechs need to hear about what happened and face up to events they may not be proud of.

Prime Minister Petr Nečas, senior parliament officials and cultural figures on Thursday attended a commemorative event at Czech Radio marking the 66th anniversary of the start of the Prague Uprising. Officials recalled that turbulent period of Czech history and laid wreaths in front of the station’s main building under a plaque bearing the names of those who lost their lives defending Czech Radio. On the morning of May 5, 1945, Czech Radio called on Prague citizens to rise up against the Nazi occupiers, four days before Soviet troops liberated the city. During a battle for control of the station around 90 people were killed. Around the city, some 30,000 people took part in the uprising, of which over 1,600 died. A number of other commemorative events are taking place elsewhere in the city.

A now famous appeal broadcast from the Czech Radio building on May 5, 1945, sparked the Prague Uprising. After hearing it on the air, thousands of people took to the streets to fight the Nazi oppressors. On Thursday, several events were held to mark the 66th anniversary of the start of the Prague Uprising, including a ceremony in front of the Czech Radio building.

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.