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Traffic in Plzen was disrupted on Tuesday following the discovery of an unexploded World War II bomb. Workers at the site of a new hotel being built in the city discovered the device, which was estimated to weigh 250 kilogrammes. The surrounding area was cleared as police waited for bomb disposal experts to remove it.

On the morning of Wednesday, 10 June, 1942, the village of Lidice, about 20 km North-West of Prague, was destroyed in retaliation for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the highest ranking Nazi official in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Sixty-five years after the massacre, some lesser known facts are still emerging.

It's 65 years since the assassination of the Reichsprotektor of Nazi-controlled Bohemia and Moravia Reinhard Heydrich, but surprisingly, there is no monument in Prague to mark the event. That, however, could be about to change, as a group of people plan to unveil a memorial - without the permission of the Prague authorities.

Archaeologists have discovered a meat freezer in Usti nad Labem where 17 butchers died during World War II, Mlada fronta Dnes reported. The freezer was found beneath the town's main square. The butchers are believed to have been sheltering from an Allied air raid in April 1945. The premises were hit by a bomb, but the freezer continued working and the men succumbed to ammonia poisoning after the gas was released by its damaged cooling system. Eight of the butchers were Czech; the others were from France and Belgium.

The remains of over three dozen German WWII soldiers have been found near the Moravian town of Olomouc. The soldiers are believed to have been killed by the Red Army at the end of the Second World War. The German union for the protection and care of war graves has commissioned a company from northern Bohemia to exhume the remains.

President Vaclav Klaus and other state officials have paid tribute to the thousands of Russian and Ukrainian émigrés who found refuge in Czechoslovakia after 1917 but were abducted by the Soviet secret police and imprisoned in Soviet labour camps in the 1940s. The short ceremony held at an orthodox Christian cemetery in Prague on Friday morning was also attended by the victims' descendants. The illegal abductions of the Russian émigrés - who were Czechoslovak citizens - began as soon as the Red Army began to liberate Czechoslovakia in 1944, and continued long after the Soviets arrived in Prague in May 1945.

This Tuesday saw the 62nd anniversary of V-E day which marked the end of World War II In Europe. Harold Yeglin, a US GI at the time, was then part of the 97th Infantry Division which had secured parts of Czechoslovakia. His company was in the west of the country when the war in Europe ended on May 8th. As a result of his wartime experience he has continued to follow events in the Czech Republic since.

Events commemorating the 62nd anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe have been held around the Czech Republic. In Prague President Vaclav Klaus, Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek and other senior dignitaries paid tribute to those who fell during the war at the national memorial on Vitkov hill. After the national anthem and a minute's silence, soldiers carrying military flags marched past in single file before wreaths were laid. Later at Prague Castle the president appointed four new generals, while around 250 new soldiers were sworn in.

A ceremony in honour of those who fought in the Prague Uprising at the end of World War II has been held in front of the Czech Radio building on Prague's Vinohradska Street. The building and the area around it was the scene of some of the bloodiest fighting at the end of the war when Czechs rose up against the German occupiers. May 1945 saw around 30,000 Prague citizens fight the Nazis over three days with more than 1,500 losing their lives. The memorial ceremony on Saturday was attended by veterans, the defence minister, members of Parliament as well as the head of Czech Radio and others.

To mark the upcoming 62nd anniversary of the end of WWII next week, a convoy of historic American vehicles has set off this week on a ride across West Bohemia, a region which was liberated by US troops led by General George S. Patton. For the third time the "Liberty Road Convoy" will commemorate the role of the Allies in the liberation of Czechoslovakia from the Nazis - a fact largely ignored by the communist authorities before 1989. The historic vehicles left Prague on Wednesday and set off on a two-day journey to arrive in Pilsen in time for