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In this programme two quite exceptional people tell their own story. It is a tale of courage, resilience and a touch of luck, but above all of the enduring power of love. Jaroslav and Alžběta Hofrichter have been married for well over half a century. Their friends call them the “turtledoves” and when you meet them it is not hard to see why. At 93 and 91 respectively, Jaroslav and Alžběta are still very much in love and if there is an elixir for happiness, they seem to have found it. This is remarkable in itself, but what makes their story the more

For six years during the Second World War, Prague was the capital of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, established by the Nazis in parts of the former Czechoslovakia. A new book entitled A Guide Through Prague Under the Protectorate now offers a detailed look at the map of the capital during those dark times. If you ever wondered where the paratroopers spent their last night before they assassinated Reinhard Heydrich, where Czech resistance fighters secretly met, or where Nazi top officials lived during the war, the book has all the

When Czechoslovakia’s President-in-exile Edvard Beneš spoke in the English industrial city of Stoke-on-Trent on 6 September 1942, it was a turning point in the propaganda war with Germany. This was three months after the Nazis had destroyed the village of Lidice near Prague; many of the men who were murdered were miners or steel workers and in Britain the massacre led to a wave of solidarity with the victims, most markedly among miners. The “Lidice Shall Live” movement that was born in Stoke-on-Trent became the focus of this solidarity, initiated

Monday is the 75th anniversary of the signing of the Munich Agreement allowing the Nazis to annex Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland, border areas chiefly inhabited by ethnic Germans. The deal was agreed on September 29 1938 but actually signed in the early hours of September 30 by the leaders of the UK, France, Germany and Italy. Czechoslovakia was not represented at the talks and considered the deal a betrayal on the part of its nominal allies the UK and France. Six months later the Nazis took over the whole of Bohemia and Moravia.

Monday marks the 75th anniversary of the Munich Agreement which granted Nazi Germany large parts of Czechoslovakia, inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans. A prelude to the Second World War, the deal forged by Germany, Italy, France and the UK dealt a final blow to pre-war Czechoslovakia whose decision to accept the agreement rather than defend the country’s integrity against Nazi expansion deeply demoralized the society. Does the Munich trauma still affect Czechs today? And what lessons can be drawn from what happened in Munich 75 years ago? In this

The former Auschwitz concentration camp hosts an exhibition on the fate of Czech Jews in the Terezín ghetto, the news agency DPA reported. The exhibit features diaries, photos and other artefacts secretly made by Terezín inmates, the head of the Auschwitz museum said. During the Holocasut, tens of thousands of Czech and Slovak Jews were transported from Terezín to Auschwitz. In 1943, the Nazis established a special section in the camp for families coming from Bohemia and Moravia but in July 1944, all of its 7,000 inhabitants were killed in what was the largest mass murder of Czechoslovak citizens during the war.

Gisela Cheffer was born Gisela Duschinský in Brno in 1932. Her Viennese father was Jewish, which made her a target for the Nazis, and her baptism as a Roman Catholic very likely saved her life. She later came close to being forced to leave during the mass expulsion of Czechoslovakia’s German population after the war. But she stayed – until, that is, a meeting with a Finn led to a life abroad.

Cardinal Dominik Duka took part in a commemorative ceremony for Romany victims of the Holocaust at the Lety memorial in southern Bohemia on Monday. The event was attended by a number of foreign ambassadors, cultural dignitaries and Roma representatives. Czech political leaders were notably absent this year, with the exception of the deputy speaker of the Senate Miluše Horská. The Lety memorial, unveiled in 1995 by then president Václav Havel, is situated close to the site of a former concentration camp for Romanies where 300 Romany prisoners lost their lives and from where hundreds of others were transported to the Auschwitz extermination camp. The fact that a pig farm is located on the site of the former camp has been the source of considerable controversy and embarrassment to the Czech government which says it does not have the money to relocate it.

Czechs commemorate the end of the Second World War on Wednesday, a public holiday in the Czech Republic. Events marking Liberation Day are held across the country; President Miloš Zeman marked the anniversary at Prague’s Vítkov Hill where a military parade was held. The event was attended by other Czech officials including Prime Minister Petr Nečas, the speaker of the lower house, Miroslava Němcová, the defence minister, the chief of the Czech Army’s general staff, and the head of the Catholic Church, Archbishop Dominik Duka. President Zeman will also appoint new generals of the Czech Army on Wednesday. The Czech Parliament as well as the country’s Foreign Ministry hold an open day on Wednesday, allowing visitors to view the interiors of the buildings.

Professor Otto Pick was one of nearly 700 Jewish children who escaped the Nazis on a transport to the UK organised by Nicholas Winton, a British diplomat based in Prague. He says he only became aware relatively recently that he was on the now famous “Winton train” and does not know how his family managed to get him on board and save his life.