David Vaughan

The scene is Prague. It is just before midday on St Valentine’s Day, February 14, 1945. An air-raid siren begins to wail. In previous weeks, Czechs have got used to the…

In Czech Books we hear the fifth part of Jaroslava Skleničková’s moving memoirs, “If I had been a boy, I would have been shot…”, read by the Czech-British actress…

During the wartime occupation, German-language broadcasts from Prague were absorbed into the radio network of Nazi Germany, the so-called “Reichssender”. A number of…

We continue with the fourth episode of “If I had been a boy, I would have been shot…” by Jaroslava Skleničková, in which she tells the extraordinary story of her life…

When Nazi Germany occupied Bohemia and Moravia in March 1939, many Czech and Slovak professional soldiers and airmen decided to escape from the country, rather than hand…

Veronika Hyks continues her serialized reading of “If I had been a boy, I would have been shot…” by Jaroslava Skleničková, a powerful and true story of survival in wartime…

We ended the last series of From the Archives at one of the darkest moments in Czech history, when on June 10 1942 the Nazis destroyed the village of Lidice. This was a…

In Czech Books this week we hear the second episode in our serialization of Jaroslava Skleničková’s moving autobiography, “If I had been a boy, I would have been shot…” We…

At the end of September 1941, Hitler appointed Reinhard Heydrich as acting Reichsprotektor of occupied Bohemia and Moravia. The radio reported on his inauguration at…

In last week’s From the Archives, we heard how German troops marched into Prague on March 15 1939. The next day, Edvard Beneš, who had resigned as Czechoslovakia’s…