Five individuals set to receive this year's annual Memory of Nations Award

Five Czech and Slovak individuals are set to receive the annual Memory of Nations Award, on Tuesday evening. Among them are Hana Truncová, who helped move people fleeing Communist Czechoslovakia cross the border into the West, and  Jarmila Weinbergerová who was a teacher of small children at the Auschwitz death camp. Due to the ongoing coronavirus epidemic, the award ceremony will take place without an audience at the National Theatre in Prague, with only the moderator and a few musicians present at the venue. Czech Television and Czech Radio will broadcast the event.

Other recipients include Leonid Dohovič who was sent to a Soviet Gulag camp for planning the liberation of formerly Czechoslovak Carpathian Ruthenia by the US Army at the age of 14, after the region was annexed by the Soviet Union, and Alžběta Vargová who, together with her father, compiled lists of individuals executed by the Nazis which helped identify many of the victims after the war. The fifth recipient is Květoslava Bartoňová who helped rescue heavily traumatised children in the Eastern Slovakia town of Svidník after the war and transport them to Olomouc.