An annual fund-raising run for the Memory of the Nation institute kicks off on Thursday. In years past, the event has raised close to a million crowns towards recording interviews with eye-witnesses to major events in modern Czech history, including those who fought against Nazism and Communism, or fell victim to those regimes.
To date, the Memory of the Nation institute (Paměť národa, in Czech) has collected testimony from 12,262 witnesses to contemporary history, more than half of which have been published online, along with 93,244 photo and some 41,486 video clips.
Among the oral histories are those of war veterans, members of the Czechoslovak resistance, survivors of Nazi concentration camps and Communist-era labour camps, former dissidents and political prisoners under both regimes, as well as ordinary people bearing witness to the impact of extraordinary events.