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A Prague court has upheld a suspended six months sentence for Holocaust denial served to a Canadian citizen of Czech descent. Vladimir Stwora was convicted in May of this year for placing on his web page a Czech language version of an article denying the Holocaust. Stwora has repeatedly rejected the charges on the grounds that he was not the author of the article, nor its translator, and has claimed to disagree with the content of the text. He said he had published the article in Canada and that the web server on which his website is located is housed in the USA and that what he did was not a crime in those countries.

Two years ago, representatives of 46 governments gathered at the former Nazi concentration camp in Terezín, an hour’s drive north of Prague. Among the many pledges contained within the pages of the Terezín Declaration was a promise to expedite the return of private property seized from Jews during the Holocaust and still not returned. Many descendants, however, are still waiting to get their family's property back.

Another 81 cobblestones honoring Holocaust victims will be added to Prague’s Zborovská Street as part of an international project organized by the German artist Gunter Demnig. Monday’s installation of new cobblestones is the second round of the project in Prague; the artist first added his stones to streets of cities across the Czech Republic in 2008.Under the title “Stolpersteine,” German for “stumbling blocks,” Mr. Demnig added such stones, bearing the name, birth date and date of deportation of the victim, to cities across Europe. A total of 23,000 of them have been installed to date. The project was inspired by a line from the Talmud: “One is not truly dead until one’s name is forgotten.”

Saturday saw the opening of an unusual exhibit held in both Prague and in London, honoring Sir Nicholas Winton, who organized the rescue of nearly 700 Jewish children by train from German-occupied Czechoslovakia to London in 1939. The exhibit, organized by director and photographer Jaroslav Brabec and Olga Menzelová, wife of the well-known Czech director Jiří Menzel, tells the stories of those who later came to be known Winton’s children. In attendance were some of them, as well as Sir Nicholas himself, who celebrated his 102nd birthday last week.

An outdoor exhibition honouring Sir Nicholas Winton, who organized the rescue of nearly 700 mostly Jewish children from German-occupied Czechoslovakia in 1939, opened at Prague’s Vyšehrad Park on Saturday. A parallel exhibit at London’s Liverpool Street Station also began on the same day. The exhibits feature large-scale photographs devoted to the theme of Winton’s train, which carried 669 Jewish children to safety, from Prague to London, in 1939. They later came to be known as “Winton’s Children.” Sir Winton, who celebrates his 102nd birthday on Thursday, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. A new drama-documentary detailing his incredible story premiered in January of this year and was shown at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

On Saturday, the event in Prague was attended by the British ambassador to the Czech Republic, Sian Macleod, Chamber of Deputies chairwoman Miroslava Němcová and Defence Minister Alexandr Vondra. They, together with some of those saved by Sir Winton, sent him best wishes by phone to London.

Czech top officials on Sunday attended a commemorative ceremony for Holocaust victims in Terezin, the site of a former Nazi concentration camp. President Vaclav Klaus, the speaker of the lower house, senators and a number of foreign dignitaries laid wreaths at a mass grave for Holocaust victims at Terzin cemetery. Speaking at the annual ceremony marking the camp's liberation the Czech president said the lessons of history must never be forgotten. Also known as Theresienstadt, the 200-year-old fortress town was transformed by the Nazis into a camp where Jews from across Europe were massed until they could be transported to extermination camps. Over 150,000 prisoners entered its gates. 35,000 died there of stress, hunger and atrocious living conditions.

The Czech Jewish writer, Arnošt Lustig died in Prague on Saturday at the age of 84. A survivor of several Nazi concentration camps, he made the Holocaust the central theme of his work that includes novels Dita Saxová, A Prayer for Kateřina Horovitzová, Lovely Green Eyes, and many others. He also worked as a reporter at Radio Prague in the 1950s.

The visual history archive of the Shoa Foundation of University of Southern California contains more than 50,000 testimonies of holocaust survivors. A year ago, Prague became one of three European locations where the complete database can be accessed. The database should soon be extended by testimonies from the genocides in Cambodia and Rwanda, that will also be made accessible from the Czech capital. In this edition of One on One, RP talked to the Czech filmmaker Martin Šmok, who works with the foundation and even shot filmed of the material.

Several events were held in the Czech Republic on Thursday to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day, marking the 66th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Several Jewish veterans and resistance workers from the Second World War met at Prague’s Czech Centre on Thursday afternoon to pay tribute to the victims of the Shoa, and to remember their fellow fighters.

Prime Minister Petr Necas warned against Holocaust denial on Thursday at a commemorative event held in the Senate marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The Prime Minister said that denial of the Holocaust was an “evil of today that is a direct continuation of the evil of yesterday”. The commemoration was also attended by representatives of the Federation of Czech Jewish Communities, Holocaust survivors, Romany representatives and politicians. International Holocaust Remembrance Day marks the liberation of the largest Nazi extermination camp in Auschwitz on January 27, 1945.