Mailbox

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Today in Mailbox: new Radio Prague QSL cards; Radio Prague internet broadcasts; the location of the assassination of the Reichsprotektor of Nazi-controlled Bohemia and Moravia Reinhard Heydrich. Listeners quoted: Patrick Minoughan, Chris Marks.

Emil Zátopek  (1926-2000) Czech runner. He held the wolrd record for the 2, 000 metres and 10, 000 metres from 1948 to 1954. At the London Olympic Games in 1948,  he won gold in the 10, 000 metres and silver in the 5, 000 metres. | Photo: ČTK
This is Mailbox, Radio Prague’s weekly programme where we read from your letters and answer your questions concerning our broadcasts and life in the Czech Republic.

As 2007 is drawing to an end, a number of listeners have enquired about new Radio Prague QSL cards for the coming year. I have seen them and I believe they make an interesting collection. There are eight of them in the set as usual and they feature outstanding Czech athletes from the long-distance runner Emil Zatopek to the ice hockey star Jaromir Jagr. The images can be seen on our website. All you need to do is click QSL cards in the left hand side menu on Radio Prague’s homepage. So if you’d like to have Radio Prague QSL cards, please send us your reception reports, either by post or e-mail or you can fill in a form on our website.

Staying with Radio Prague’s internet site, Patrick Minoughan from somewhere in cyberspace has this question concerning Radio Prague’s internet broadcasts:

“Will you ever make you broadcast available through Windows Media Player? For some unknown reason RealAudio just seems to conflict with everything in my computer and I can't use it.”

At the moment Radio Prague complete broadcasts from the past six days are available both in the RealAudio and MP3 formats. Individual features are now archived only in the RealAudio format. But I have good news for you – all Radio Prague audio material will soon be available in MP3 so your problem will be solved, Patrick.

Just a quick reminder, if you are writing to us via e-mail, please include the country you are writing from along with your name. Also, if you’d like your letters read on the air and happen to have an unusual name or you come from a country whose language we might not understand – it would be a great help if you let us know how to pronounce it properly. Thank you for your help.

Chris Marks follows Radio Prague in Connecticut:

Heydrich's car after the assassination | Photo: Bundesarchiv,  Bild 146-1972-039-44,  Wikimedia Commons,  CC BY-SA 3.0
“I've been trying to locate the site of Heydrich's wounding in the Liben district of Prague. In online searches I've been able to find a notation that Heydrich's car slowed down to turn from Kirchmaier St onto Klein Holsewitz St. I can't find this site in Google Earth. Can you help me?”

Actually, this is not the first time we got asked this question. Even though I grew up not far from the scene of the attack, I must admit I never knew precisely where it took place. The reason is that the location has completely changed since then. A two-level interchange was built there in the 1980s. Also, you won't find the place under German names anymore. The main street is called V Holesovickach. Three streets in the neighbourhood, Valcikova, Gabcikova and Kubisova had been named after the paratroopers. But surprisingly, there is no monument to mark the event at the location. After an anonymous group this year placed an unofficial plaque there, the Prague 8 authority, the Prague city hall, a war veterans organisation and historians from the Academy of Sciences have finally agreed to work together on the construction of a monument. The foundation stone should be laid next year.


I’m afraid our time is up so let me just quickly repeat our competition question for December:

This month our mystery Czech is a lady. She was born one hundred years ago in Prague. This famous soprano was a star of the Metropolitan Opera in the 1940s and 1950s. She died in New York in 1994.

Your answers should reach us by the end of the month at: [email protected] or Radio Prague, 12099 Prague. Until next week, thanks for tuning in and bye-bye.