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It's not often you get the chance to talk about history with those who participated in it. But recently while covering a festival of Jewish culture in the south Moravian town of Mikulov, I had that chance. The festival marked the 70th anniversary of the foundation of Mikulov's Jewish museum for Moravia and Silesia, which was closed when the Nazis arrived in 1938. Among the guests was William Teltscher, son of the museum's founder Richard Teltscher. William Teltscher fled the Nazis in 1938 and emigrated to London, where he's lived ever since. Now

An exhibit devoted to the history of the Roma and Sinti Holocaust has opened in Prague's National Gallery. Entitled "The Roma Holocaust: the genocide of Roma and Sinti and racism in today's Europe," the exhibit is meant to bring to light aspects of WWII history not often mentioned.

The issue of Holocaust denial hit the headlines again recently due to the highly publicized trial of well-known Holocaust denier David Irving in Austria earlier this year. Here in Prague, this highly controversial topic was recently discussed at a public debate held at the Austrian Cultural Forum.

Late 1943. The cold barracks of the Terezin ghetto stand against an autumn sky. Although deportations to the camp had come to a standstill earlier in the year, the overcrowded conditions, disease and hunger still remained. As did the ever present threat of the gas chambers. But on this occasion the usual sounds carried through Terezin's bleak corridors were interrupted by very different strains.

Holocaust Rememberance Day marks the 63rd anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Commemorations in honor of the victims were held throughout the Czech Republic, and education ministers from across Europe met for a second day of talks on Holocaust education. An elderly survivor at one memorial in Prague reads the names and fates of many Czech Holocaust victims: A ghetto, a concentration camp, and the end.

On Tuesday, Jewish communities in the Czech Republic are commemorating Yom ha Shoah or Holocaust Remembrance Day which is observed around the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1943. The names of Czech Holocaust victims will be read out during ceremonies in Prague and a former concentration camp in Terezin. Around 80,000 Czech Jews perished in the Holocaust, among them the whole family of Zdenka Fantlova, who was herself imprisoned in several concentration camps: Terezin, Auschwitz, Gross-Rosen and Mauthausen until she was liberated from

Czech Jews who lost their property during WWII have finally received compensation from the Czech state. In the course of five years, the Foundation for Holocaust Victims distributed 100 million crowns (over 4 million dollars) put in by the Czech state among some 500 claimants from 27 countries to mitigate some property injustices caused to Holocaust victims.

Controversial British historian David Irving has featured heavily in the world's media this week after being convicted in Austria for denying the Holocaust. The trial was based on Mr Irving's book "Hitler's War", in which the author claims that Hitler knew nothing of the Holocaust and Auschwitz was not an extermination camp. But Czech translations of David Irving's books are also widely available in this country - where Holocaust denial is a crime.

A Czech man who joined a demonstration outside the German embassy in Prague for the release of a far-right extremist imprisoned in Germany for denying the Holocaust will himself face trial for the same offence. Czech state attorney Zdenka Galkova said on Monday that the unidentified 21-year-old man -- whom media have described as a Neo-Nazi - faces three years in prison. The accused was among some seventy far-right extremists who protested in support of author and Holocaust-denier Ernst Zuendel, now on trial in Mannheim, Germany. The rally on October 28, a state holiday, was shouted down by a larger much group of anti-fascists. The accused was one of two far-right extremists arrested that day.

It has been sixty years since the end of the Second World War but it was not until last Sunday that the northern Czech industrial town of Usti nad Labem unveiled a memorial dedicated to the 1,000 Jewish residents who perished in the Holocaust. It is one of the most striking memorials in Europe - a massive granite Star of David half immersed into the site of a former Jewish cemetery. It is simple but powerful.