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Fearing prison in Communist Czechoslovakia, in March 1950 Oldřich Doležal and other ex-RAF aviators simultaneously kidnapped three planes on internal flights and escaped to West Germany. On board one of those planes was Doležal’s son, then just an infant. Today Tom Dolezal runs the Czechoslovak Free Airforce website and is an authority on the Czech and Slovaks who served in the RAF.

Since her early childhood in the 1920s, Lisa Miková had dreamed of becoming a fashion designer. When as a student she started submitting her designs to one of the best Prague salons, there was every reason to think that her dream would come true. But Lisa was Jewish, and the German occupation brought her studies to an abrupt end. In 1942, at the age of twenty, she was sent with her parents to the Terezín Ghetto. There she fell in love with a young engineer called František, and in the tough conditions of the ghetto they married. Miraculously they

Jaroslava Doležalová has become an honorary citizen of her home town Žďár nad Sázavou. She hid a little Jewish girl during WW II and probably saved her life, risking her own and her husband's in the process. Hardly anybody knew about it for a very long time and it has only been brought to public attention now, more than seven decades later. So, Mrs. Doležalová in the 93rd year of her life receives well-deserved, even if long-delayed, accolades and praise. But her story also reveals something less praiseworthy about the Czech attitude toward

The Czech educational game ‘Attentat 1942’ about the Nazi occupation of Bohemia and Moravia will be competing at the prestigious world Independent Games Festival. The project, developed by Charles University and the Czech Academy of Sciences, tells a story of the occupation through the eyes of survivors.

Moscow has issued a sharp protest over the vandalizing of a statue of Soviet Marshal Ivan Konev in Prague which was spray painted with the dates 1956, 1961, 1968 and 2017 earlier this week. The Russian Foreign Ministry denounced the act as vandalism and an insult to those who had laid down their lives in the liberation of Czechoslovakia.

The incident happened shortly after an offensive article appeared on a Russian web which said the Czech Republic should be grateful for the 1968 Soviet-led invasion which had brought the country 20 years of peace and stability. On a state visit to Russia, President Zeman protested against the insult to his country and Russian Prime Minister Medvedev publicly distanced himself from the article.

Marshal Konev is perceived as a controversial figure in the Czech Republic. After being present on several fronts in WWII, Konev was involved in the suppression of the Hungarian uprising in 1956 and was also present in Berlin for the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961.

A plaque bearing the names of over 2,500 Czechoslovaks who served with Britain’s RAF has just been unveiled on the Winged Lion monument in Prague.

Historians from the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes have gained access to several thousand documents from Russian archives relating to Czech and Slovak soldiers fighting in exile who were interned in Soviet gulags by the communist regime during WWII.

This is the first time that Moscow has released these sensitive documents for study outside Russian territory. They were acquired by Museum of the Slovak National Uprising which has given Czech historians access to them as well.

According to the head of the Museum of the Slovak National Uprising Stanislav Mičev close to 70,000 Czechs and Slovaks were interned in Russia between 1941 and 1945, among them two generals and 159 lieutenants. Over 4,000 of them never came home.

A remembrance ceremony is being held in Prague on Monday early evening marking the 72nd anniversary of the return of Czechoslovak aviators who served with Britain’s RAF during WWII. Among those in attendance is set to be one of the last surviving Czech RAF men, Brigadier General Emil Boček.

Brigadier General Jaroslav Klemeš, the last Czechoslovak paratrooper flown into Protectorate during World War II, has died. Defence Minister Martin Stropnický confirmed the news in a tweet on Monday, offering his condolences to the war hero, whom he said died peacefully at the age of 95.

Czech Culture Minister Daniel Herman has announced an important breakthrough in the government’s efforts to secure the buy-out of an offensive pig farm in Lety, South Bohemia located on the site of a former concentration camp where hundreds of Roma died in inhumane conditions in WWII. The company that owns the farm has now agreed to sell it to the state, opening the way for a dignified memorial to the victims to be built on the grounds.