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The final days of World War II remain among the bloodiest that Czechs can remember - with countless atrocities against civilians committed by the Nazis even as the Czechs rose up against them. In the Pelhrimov region, just days before the end of the war, German forces swept into the village of Leskovice, killing twenty-five people, and razing the village to the ground. No one was ever punished for the atrocity. What's more, research by a Czech investigative reporter has reportedly shown that the man responsible for ordering the massacre - former

This week marks the 65th anniversary of the turning point in the "Battle of Britain," when Royal Air Force pilots gunned down 185 German planes in a single day. Ahead of the battle, the Luftwaffe outnumbered the RAF by more than three to one, and Adolf Hitler was expecting a decisive victory that would allow him to mount a full-scale invasion of the British Isles. Among the RAF fighting men who came to be known as "The Few" were almost ninety Czechoslovaks -- including the top scoring pilot of the entire battle.

The expulsion of more than two million ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia after World War II has long remained a source of tension in Czech-German relations and one of the most controversial chapters in Czechoslovakia's post-war history. On Wednesday, for the first time, the Czech government expressed a symbolic apology and regret over the post-war victimisation of thousands of Sudeten Germans, who had remained loyal to the Czechoslovak state and had been active in the anti-Nazi resistance. The gesture, approved unanimously by the government, has

Recently discovered footage of Polish and Czechoslovak Jews leaving Prague for Britain in 1945 was shown for the first time on Tuesday at London's Imperial War Museum. The four and half minutes of film show 732 teenage Holocaust survivors heading for Britain, a country many of them would later make their home. Among them was Ben Helfgott, a Polish Jew from near Lodz, who was at Tuesday's premiere.

This week citizens of Hiroshima, but also the rest of the world will mark the 60th anniversary of the first use of the atomic bomb in war. On the morning of August 6th, 1945 - in an instant - most of Hiroshima ceased to exist.

The Czech Republic still has an extensive system of fortifications built in the 1930s that was intended to prevent an attack by neighboring Nazi Germany. You can often come across of these concrete "bungalows" in Czech forests near the borders. While some consider the structures ugly, historians point out their great historical value. Most of the bunkers are still the property of Czech Army but they have rapidly become a burden. The Ministry of Defense has now decided to get rid of them to sell them to private buyers.

The Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka paid a one-day visit to Prague on Thursday - and praised Czech counterpart Jiri Paroubek's efforts at reconciliation with anti-fascist Sudeten Germans expelled from Czechoslovakia after the war. Both Poland and the Czech Republic have made strides towards reconciliation with Germany in recent years, though the efforts are not to everyone's liking. Rob Cameron has more.

A handful of people gathered on Monday at Prague's Vinohrady Cemetery to mark the 60th anniversary of the death of Czechoslovakia's third President, Emil Hacha. It was an event that wasn't marked with pomp and ceremony: Emil Hacha remained in office throughout the German wartime occupation, and he is remembered by many as a symbol of wartime collaboration. David Vaughan reports.

In the years from 1939-1945, thousands of Jewish Czechs and Slovaks fought against the Nazis around the world, some within the armies that were resisting Hitler, and others in the underground. Twenty-six panels of photographs and other archive materials documented their lives and activities at Prague's Chamber of Deputies. The exhibition featured a part of Czechoslovak history that most Czechs know little about.

Thanks to Steven Spielberg the name of Oskar Schindler is known the world over, but this programme is about an almost forgotten contemporary of Schindler, who deserves a similar place in history. In the course of the tumultuous 20th century, Premysl Pitter, born in Prague in 1895, did more than perhaps anyone else to help children - Czech, German and Jewish - through some of the most horrific moments of European history.