Loading...
Top officials, WWII veterans and foreign diplomats attended a ceremony marking the 79th anniversary of the liberation of the Terezín ghetto on Sunday. Among the participants were President Petr Pavel, Senate chair Miloš Vystrčil and Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Markéta Pekarová Adamová.
In her address, the speaker of the lower house said it is the moral duty of people to remember what happened at Terezín and to consistently fight against those who want to forget, distort history, belittle or even deny the horrors of the Holocaust.
Also known as Theresienstadt, the 200-year-old fortress town was transformed by the Nazis into a camp where Jews from across Europe were massed until they could be transported to extermination camps. Between 1940 and 1945 over 155,000 prisoners entered its gates. Around 117,000 of them did not survive the war. Some 35,000 died in the camp itself of stress, hunger and atrocious living conditions.
Relations between Czechs and Sudeten Germans have improved significantly in recent years, and the days when Czechia viewed conferences of the Landsmannschaft with apprehension are now a thing of the past, the Czech ambassador to Germany, Tomáš Kafka, said in an address to the annual gathering of Sudeten Germans in Augspurk, Bavaria. The Sudeten German Landsmannschaft which organizes annual gatherings is one of the biggest organisations representing ethnic Germans expelled from Czechoslovakia after World War II. Ambassador Kafka attended the meeting as the official representative of the Czech government. He conveyed to the gathering greetings from President Petr Pavel, saying that the Czech head of state is very pleased with the direction and dynamism with which Czech-German relations are developing.
In the past, Czech-German relations were burdened by the past, driven also by Czech fears of potential property demands from descendants of Germans expelled after the war. The moto of this year’s gathering, which was held three weeks before the European Parliament elections, is Sudeten Germans and Czechs - Together for Europe.
The opposition ANO party retains a strong edge over its rivals in opinion polls. According to a survey conducted by the Kantar agency for Czech Television, if elections were held today, ANO would get 32 percent of the votes, followed by the ruling Civic Democrats with 15.5 percent and the Pirate Party of the governing coalition with 11 percent. The opposition Freedom and Direct Democracy party would get 9 percent of the votes, followed by the coalition parties Mayors and Independents with 7.5 percent and TOP 09 with 5 percent of the votes. No other party would cross the 5 percent threshold needed to win seats in the lower chamber.
Valtířov, a small village in the Ústí nad Labem region north of Prague, was hit by a small tornado on Saturday, the Czech Hydro-meteorological Institute said on its X network. No significant damage was reported. The tornado passed through the settlement at around 4.40 pm on Saturday and was captured on video by several locals.
Meteorologists have issued a heavy storm warning for most of the country between 2pm and midnight on Sunday. According to the Czech Hydro-meteorological Institute severe storms may be accompanied by hail and torrential rain. They do not rule out the possibility of supercells. The warning does not apply to southern Moravia and parts of the Vysočina and Zlín regions. In the northern, northeastern and eastern parts of Bohemia and parts of Moravia, the warning is in effect until midnight," the institute said.
The Czech hockey team beat Great Britain 4:1 on Saturday night and moved to the top of Group A in the World Hockey Championship in Prague. Czechia is now one point ahead of Switzerland and Canada, who have played one game less, and will not drop below third place. The Czech team will play its last group game on Tuesday at 4.20pm against Canada.
Monday should be partly cloudy with scattered showers and day temperatures between 20 and 24 degrees Celsius.
Czechs contributed to the foundation of the International Olympic Committee and to the creation of Olympism as we know it today. One of the co-authors of the Olympic Charter was Czech Jiří Stanislav Guth-Jarkovský.
Fantastic Scherzo by the great Czech composer Josef Suk premiered at Prague’s Rudolfinum in 1905.
This e-mail is sent to you automatically according to the settings you chose. To change the settings, click here.
© 2024, Radio Prague International - the external service of Czech Radio, all rights reserved.
https://english.radio.cz, e-mail: english@radio.cz, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram
Loading...
Loading...