Zvuky Prahy / Sounds of Prague

Born in Prague, Jan Masaryk was a son of professor and politician Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and Charlotte Garrigue, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk's American wife. Masaryk was educated in Prague and also in the USA. He returned home in 1913 and served in the Austro-Hungarian Army during the First World War.He then joined the diplomatic service and became chargé d'affaires to the USA in 1919, a post he held until 1922. In 1925 he was made ambassador to Britain. When a Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile was established in Britain in 1940, Masaryk was appointed Foreign Minister. During the war he regularly made broadcasts over the BBC to occupied Czechoslovakia. In this fragment of his speech from 1940 Masaryk talked about his childhood in Prague.