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On Sunday, a ceremony commemorating the Romani victims of Nazi persecution during World War II took place in the town of Hodonín u Kunštátu in central Moravia. The ceremony was held on an anniversary of the largest transports of Roman to Auschwitz. Around 1400 Moravian Roma were interned at the so-called “Gypsy camp” in Hodonín in the years 1942-43. Three hundred of them died at the camp, while the others were sent to the death camps in Auschwitz. A memorial will be erected in Hodonín u Kunštátu most likely in August 1916 in commemoration of Romani victims. After the war, the Hodonín camp was used to intern Germans who could not be deported from Czechoslovakia, in accordance with the Beneš decrees, because of health problems or old age. And later briefly served as a Communist forced labour camp for political prisoners.

A mine exploded in a field near Břeclav in South Moravia on Wednesday when it was run over by a tractor. Police said the 47-year-old driver was mulching his field when the glass and wheels were shattered by the explosion. He walked away from the blast unharmed, though the machine itself was badly damaged. The mine is believed to have been laying in the ground since the Second World War.

Czech Prime Minister Petr Nečas on Monday attended a commemorative ceremony for the victims of the Romany Holocaust. At the site of a former concentration camp in Lety, Mr Nečas admitted the Czech responsibility for the murder of over 5,000 Romanies during the war. But the official event sparked controversy among the Romany community which says the government should first make sure the victims were giving a dignified memorial.

Several Czech Romany groups on Saturday called for a boycott of Monday’s official ceremony in commemoration of Romany victims of the Holocaust. Prime Minister Petr Nečas and other officials are to attend the event held at the site of a former concentration camp in Lety, in southern Bohemia; however, some Romany representatives said the government should first remove a large pig farm built on the site of the camp after the war. The farm’s existence has been a controversial issue in the Czech society for years; attempts by several Czech governments to remove failed due to high relocation costs demanded by the farm’s owners.

The previous episode of Czech Life featured the first part of Lillian Schořová’s life story. The 92-year-old Englishwoman is one of the hundreds of English war brides who went home with their Czechoslovak husbands after the war. Lillian came to Czechoslovakia with Josef, a tankist from the armored brigade who was stationed in the United Kingdom, in 1945. In this episode, she talks about her life after the war, her difficulties learning Czech, her unusual career and how she feels today, looking back on all the ups and downs of her adventurous

Several dozen people gathered in Prague on Saturday to commemorate post-war politician Milada Horáková and other victims of communism on the weekend before the 62nd anniversary of her execution by the Communist regime. Horáková was executed on charges of treason and conspiracy after a show trial on June 27, 1950. People paid their respects to her and others at the monument to 235 victims of communism in front of Pankrác Prison in Prague, where Horáková and others were imprisoned and killed. Milada Horáková served in the anti-fascist resistance during WWII, before becoming an MP for the National Socialists. She left politics after the Communist coup in 1948 and was arrested the next year. The Supreme Court overturned her conviction in 1968, however she was only exonerated in 1990.

Only a handful of the hundreds of British women who moved to this part of the world with their Czechoslovak husbands after World War II remain in the Czech Republic. Many have died, while some returned home to the U.K. decades ago. One of the few British war brides still living here is Lillian Schořová, whose home is in North Bohemia. Radio Prague’s Sarah Borufka visited her there for this episode of Czech Life.

On Sunday Czechs marked the 70th anniversary one of the biggest tragedies in the country’s history the extermination of Lidice village, the Nazis’ brutal revenge for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi governor of Bohemia and Moravia. The unprecedented massacre of civilians, followed just two weeks later by the razing to the ground of a second village, Ležáky, opened the eyes of the international community to the true nature of the regime and to this day remains one of the most powerful mementos of WWII.

This weekend is the 70th anniversary of the Nazi destruction of the village of Lidice. Shortly after the massacre, the British novelist Kathleen Hewitt wrote: “The tragedy of Lidice is part of a tragedy so great that one hesitates before daring to comment on it.” But she added that “words are potent weapons, as it is of words that history is made.” Since the Nazis tried to wipe Lidice from the map, many, many words have been written about Lidice; it has captured the imagination of writers like few other wartime atrocities, and dozens, perhaps hundreds,

On occasion of the 70-year-anniversary of the Heydrich assassination, an exhibition on the subject has opened in Israel’s Parliament, the Knesset. While the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich is one of the most significant events in modern Czech history, the story of how the governor of the occupied Czech lands was killed is relatively unknown in Israel – despite the fact that Heydrich was one of the main architects behind the Final Solution.