czechoslovakia

Profiles the life of Vaclav Havel, President of the Czech republic from 1992 to 2002, and chronicles his childhood growing up under Nazi occupation and then under the control of the Soviet Union, and his political activism against the totalitarian regime.

Tomas, a hopeless philanderer and successful surgeon, flees Prague when the Russians invade in 1968 and heads for Switzerland where he must provide for himself and his lover by working as a window washer.

Covers the years during which Friedl Dicker, a Jewish woman from Czechoslovakia, taught art to children at the Terezin Concentration Camp. Includes art created by teacher and students, excerpts from diaries, and interviews with camp survivors.

Artist S?s Peter describes what it was like growing up in a Communist country and discusses how Western culture influenced his life.