Three generations of one family endure daily hardship typical of second world war for show, which has sparked criticism

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

In a remote mountainside village, a frightened Czech family struggles under the privations of Nazi occupation, with food rationed and Gestapo spies everywhere as German soldiers patrol the streets.



The scene is not a costume drama but the first episode of a new Czech TV reality show that features a modern-day family living among actors who play Nazi soldiers and the hamlet’s other residents, in an attempt to recreate life under the Nazis during the second world war.

Three generations of the family eat meagre rations, dress in the style of the era and endure the daily hardship their predecessors would have experienced after Hitler’s 1939 invasion of the country.

Recorded over two months in summer 2014 and shown on public broadcaster ČT (Česká Televize), the eight scheduled episodes of Holiday in the Protectorate – episode titles include “Rules of survival” and “With the Gestapo at my back” – are set in the majority Czech-ethnic protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, areas of the present-day Czech Republic then ruled by a puppet government established by the Nazis.

“I spent a long time looking for a concept that would allow me to show life in another era while ensuring the highest level of authenticity,” said the director, Zora Cejnkova.

The concept has stirred angry reactions far beyond the Czech Republic, even by the standards of a television genre rarely noted for its cultural sensitivity.

“Fortunately for the family, they will not be treated like the 82,309 Jews who lived in the protectorate and were deported by the Nazis to concentration and death camps or were killed by Czech collaborators,” one columnist in the Times of Israel wrote.

“Critics ask whether ‘Big Brother Auschwitz’ is next,” read a wry subheading to the column online.

Around 360,000 Czechs and Slovaks died during the war.