Kate Connolly

‘Some parents said they’d break my knees’: the teacher who exposed Putin’s primary school propaganda Grenade-throwing contests replaced PE and ‘denazification’ speeches became homework. Pavel Talankin’s undercover film about his school’s indoctrination drive won a Bafta and is tipped for an Oscar, bu...

This is excellent and available on BBC iPlayer

www.theguardian.com/film/2026/ma...

‘This girl was braver than I was’: Julia Kochetova’s astonishing photographs of war in Ukraine From children’s funerals to underground shelters to the frontline, Kochetova has captured the conflict with power and humanity for the Guardian. ‘I have the same scars as the people I photograph,’ she...

The beautiful, harrowing photography of Ukrainian Julia Kochetova, unwitting war journalist, capturing the humanity and resilience of her countryfolk since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, by Charlotte Higgins www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

YouTube video by ang's archive An Audience With Victoria Wood 1988

Following a conversation about potatoes with @kateconnolly.bsky.social I watched "An Audience with Victoria Wood" again. I'd forgotten how funny it is, such sharp wit. Perfect English humour. Almost 40 years old and it hasn't aged one bit. Just superb youtu.be/HNkVBwKCQcw?...

Blissful! Thankyou. So many fantastic lines. Have to watch again, if only to identify all those 1980’s celebrities.

:) Exactly. I couldn’t find the sketch on YouTube. If you know where it is, pls shout!

Thankyou - I tried to slip it into the copy but it was edited out. Glad it struck a chord with you.

Record harvest sparks mass giveaway of free potatoes across Berlin From zoos to soup kitchens, people are hauling away tonnes of surplus spuds after the biggest crop in 25 years

Record harvest sparks mass giveaway of free potatoes across Berlin www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j... via @theguardian.com @kateconnolly.bsky.social

Record harvest sparks mass giveaway of free potatoes across Berlin From zoos to soup kitchens, people are hauling away tonnes of surplus spuds after the biggest crop in 25 years

Spudulike? (Or spud-oo-lickay, as the late great Victoria Wood would have it) then pop to a potato hotspot in Berlin and take home, for free, a share of the recent bumper harvest.
www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

Thanks Eliot. Found a few folks via old fashioned word of mouth, but thanks for writing! Read all about it in @theguardian.com later!

Is anyone who took part in the Potato Action 4000-Tonnen in Berlin and is now wading through lashings of mashed potato and other culinary delights prepared to talk about it with me for The Guardian? Pls send me a DM. Vielen Dank!

Gibt es hier jemanden, der an der Kartoffelaktion 4000-Tonnen in Berlin teilgenommen hat und sich nun durch Unmengen von Kartoffelpüree und anderen kulinarischen Köstlichkeiten kämpft und bereit ist, mit mir für The Guardian darüber zu sprechen? DM bitte! Vielen Dank.

‘I was simply luckier’: Holocaust survivors warn against forgetting Nazi atrocities People urged to stand up against populism and antisemitism as the world marks International Holocaust Memorial Day

‘I was simply luckier’: Holocaust survivors warn against forgetting Nazi atrocities. People urged to stand up against populism and antisemitism as the world marks International Holocaust Memorial Day. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j... via @theguardian.com @kateconnolly.bsky.social

‘I was simply luckier’: Holocaust survivors warn against forgetting Nazi atrocities People urged to stand up against populism and antisemitism as the world marks International Holocaust Memorial Day

Holocaust survivors warn against forgetting on the 81st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

‘Repatriate the gold’: German economists advise withdrawal from US vaults Shift in relations and unpredictability of Donald Trump make it ‘risky to store so much gold in the US’, say experts

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

‘I felt numb’: German bank heist victims devastated after thieves ransack 3,000 deposit boxes Gelsenkirchen savings bank was raided over Christmas by criminals who used huge drill to access vault

‘I felt numb’: German bank heist victims devastated after thieves ransack 3,000 deposit boxes. A Gelsenkirchen savings bank was raided over Christmas by criminals who used a huge drill to access the vault www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j... via @theguardian.com @kateconnolly.bsky.social

In Our Time - Rosa Luxemburg - BBC Sounds Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and times of Rosa Luxemburg, revolutionary.

15 January 1919: Rosa Luxemburg was murdered in Berlin. Listen to a BBC 'In Our Time' radio programme about her life. bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Radio 6 Music - Listen Live - BBC Sounds Listen live to Radio 6 Music on BBC Sounds

Enjoying Mary Anne Hobbs’ David Bowie Low album special. Marking 10 years since his death. Lots of Berlin anecdotes. On now!

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Not surprisingly, after the recent Berlin Blackout (longest since WW2), I keep getting sent ads for wind-up radios. Certainly beats the unending notices for stair lifts.

‘Extraordinary’ iron age war trumpet find in Britain may have Boudicca links Bronze instrument or carnyx dug up in Norfolk in area inhabited by Celtic tribe led by warrior who fought Romans

Absolutely sensational find in Norfolk - the most complete carnyx or Iron Age battle trumpet ever discovered, anywhere. Buried in the first century AD in the territory of the Iceni…

www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

Rebel nuns who busted out of Austrian care home win reprieve – for now Trio given leave to stay in their abandoned convent near Salzburg until further notice, church officials say

Rebel nuns who busted out of Austrian care home win reprieve – for now

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

‘No topic is too difficult’: children’s series on life in communist East Germany wins an Emmy In Fritzi’s Footsteps tells story of a girl growing up in Leipzig who witnesses the fall of the Berlin Wall

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

‘No topic is too difficult’: children’s series on life in communist East Germany wins an Emmy

Digitised official records of Nuremberg trials made available online Launch on 80th anniversary of groundbreaking legal effort comes after 25-year project by Harvard law school library

Digitised official records of Nuremberg trials made available online

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

AfD hails US ban on European leftwing groups as historians fear crackdown on anti-fascists German far-right party urges Berlin and other European nations to also designate ‘antifa’ groups as terrorist organisations

AfD hails US ban on European leftwing groups as historians fear crackdown on anti-fascists

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

New sleeper service will run from Paris to Berlin next year European Sleeper will operate the new service from March 2026, replacing the Nightjet train that is being axed next month

Hooray! Best story of the day. X www.theguardian.com/travel/2025/...

‘Every piece of evidence is vital’: Holocaust survivor calls for victims’ shoes to be salvaged Manfred Goldberg, 94, urges authorities to preserve fragments of thousands of shoes left to rot at Stutthof concentration camp site

Saddened to hear of the death of Holocaust survivor Manfred Goldberg, who we interviewed in 2024.
“I feel my revenge on the Nazis is the building of our lovely family.” RIP Manfred.

www.theguardian.com/world/articl...

‘Every piece of evidence is vital’: Holocaust survivor calls for victims’ shoes to be salvaged Manfred Goldberg, 94, urges authorities to preserve fragments of thousands of shoes left to rot at Stutthof concentration camp site

Saddened to hear of the death of Manfred Goldberg, Holocaust survivor, who we interviewed in 2024. “I feel my revenge on the Nazis is the building of our lovely family“. RIP Manfred.

www.theguardian.com/world/articl...

High-speed rail network possible by 2040, says European Commission Plan to cut journey times between major cities could reduce Berlin-Copenhagen trip from seven to four hours

We live in hope… www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

German retirees who continue working set to earn €2,000 a month tax-free Active pension scheme expected to start in January is part of chancellor’s ‘autumn of reforms’ to tackle economic stagnation

German retirees who continue working are set to earn €2000 a month tax free

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

You won’t believe what degrading practice the pope just condemned Communication must be freed from clickbait and misguided thinking, head of Catholic church tells journalists

‘You won’t believe what degrading practice the pope just condemned’ (= one of the best headlines of the year so far)
www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Another great read from Salzburg by @kateconnolly.bsky.social