Photo demeaned Czechs’ sacrifice
I have yet to read Nigel Rock’s fictional tale of derring-do during the Second World War (Courier last week), but speaking as someone who has researched and written the harrowing and true story behind the names on the Czech Fountain, I find it rather distasteful to see in your columns a photograph of the memorial used solely to promote a work of fiction.
I don’t know who thought it was a good idea to plug the book in this way which, by association, serves only to demean the sacrifice of those brave Czechs who gave their lives in the pursuit of freedom from Nazism. They were incidentally not Czech airmen but Warrant Officers of the Czechoslovak Independent Brigade.
There lives in Leamington an old Czech soldier who served alongside these men, whose biography was recently published in his homeland and which is even more extraordinary than any work of fiction. I have little doubt that he, like me, feels affronted at the exploitation of the Czech Memorial for commercial gain and for no other reason. - Alan Griffin, Leam Street Leamington.