Czech republic

  • A smiley face on a passport application form. A smiley face of a girl who had high hopes of travelling and getting many stamps on her passport. A smiley face of a girl who maybe one day would become a famous child actor, like Shirley Temple because she looks just like her. The same Shirley

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  • Art can be a powerful medium when expressing emotions or illustrating life as experienced. Artist Bedřich Fritta who was born Fritz Taussig expressed his experiences of the Holocaust via art. Fritta was captured and deported on 4 December 1941 to the Theresienstadt ghetto. His wife and son followed in 1942. Fritta and other illustrators in

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  • The Lidice Massacre

    The Lidice massacre was one of the most brutal reprisals carried out by Nazi forces during World War II. It took place on June 10, 1942, in the village of Lidice, which was then part of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, now the Czech Republic. The massacre was a direct retaliation for the assassination

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  • Holocaust Music

    “Music has charms to soothe a savage breast,” is a famous line which was used by a character in William Congreve’s 1697 play The Mourning Bride. And sometimes music does soothe the savage beast, but during the Holocaust, some of these ‘beasts’ were so evil that nothing could soothe them. However, music did play an

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  • Theresienstadt, also known as Terezín, was a town in northern Bohemia (now in the Czech Republic), it was used from 1941 to 1945 by the Nazis as a walled ghetto and concentration camp and was also used as a transit camp for western Jews en route to Auschwitz and other extermination camps. In 1943, the

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  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; Amadeus, Goya’s Ghosts; Man on he Moon, these are some of my favourite movies. They were all directed by Miloš Forman. For two of them he received an academy award aka Oscar. That on its own is extraordinary, but it is nothing compared to Miloš’s story of his young

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  • Holocaust Testimonies

    There are millions of Holocaust stories I could write, but none will be as powerful as the testimonies of those who survived the darkest era. Following are some of those testimonies. Written by Zdeněk and Jiří Steiner, born 20. 5. 1929 in Prague, residents of Prague, former prisoners in the concentration camps of Theresienstadt and

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  • At first I felt joy because who could not be joyful seeing those 2 beautiful smiley faces. Then I am amazed because I see you two have the same birthday, April 4, 1932. This is followed by bewilderment because you appear to have different last names. Milan Herrmann and Dagmar Herrmannová. But after a bit

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  • On  October ,28 1939, students from the  Charles University in Prague held a demonstration to remember the 21st anniversary of the independence of the Republic of Czechoslovakia. The demonstration was violently suppressed  by the occupying Nazi regime more then a dozen  students were seriously injured, one of the students  Jan Opletal later died of his

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  • Although the Germans had already surrendered and celebration to celebrate VE day had begun in many parts of the world, some German troops decided to go for one more killing spree. The Massacre in Trhová Kamenice happened on 8 May 1945 in what is now the Czech Republic. German troops, escaping from Chrudim back to Germany,

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