“Can there be a more stunning view from a British embassy anywhere in the world?” We were looking out of the window of the late medieval Thun Palace in the heart of Malá Strana, Prague. Ambassador Matt Field is of course biased, but who am I to disagree? I’ve been speaking to Czech guests at the embassy in Prague about the best and worst prime ministers in history. When I showed a photograph of Neville Chamberlain, who spoke of “a faraway country” in a quarrel between people “of whom we know nothing”, and then put up JD Vance beside him, there was an intensely diplomatic silence and nodding of heads.
I have been walking across Germany and the stunning Czech Republic from kilometre zero to Auschwitz, in Poland, for a book to be published in Remembrance Week. It will celebrate those who displayed courage and compassion during the Second World War. Prague is full of such heroes, not least those who protected the wounded in Lidice, the village destroyed on the orders of Hitler as vengeance for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, his “protector” of Bohemia and Moravia.
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