LIDICE

'Statistics'
Area:	4.74 km²
Population:	435 ''(2006)''
'Map'
WWII poster commemorating Lidice

'Lidice' () is a village in Czech Republic) just north-west of Prague which, as part of Czechoslovakia, was completely destroyed by the Germans during World War II. On June 10, 1942, all 192 adult men from the village were murdered by the Germans, and the rest of the population deported.

Contents

History

Massacre

Lidice today

References

See also

External links

History

The village is first mentioned in writing in 1318. After the industrialization of the area, many of its people worked in mines and factories in the neighbouring cities of Kladno and Slany.

Massacre

In 1942, Reinhard Heydrich was the ''Reichsprotektor'' of the Nazi German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. This area of the former Czechoslovakia had been occupied by Germany since 1939. On the morning of Wednesday May 27, 1942, he was being driven from his country villa at Panenske Brezany to his office at Prague Castle. When he reached the Holešovice area of Prague, his car was attacked by two Czechoslovak resistance fighters, Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš. These men, who had been trained in Britain, had parachuted into Czechoslovakia in December, 1941, as part of Operation Anthropoid. After Gabčík's Sten gun failed, Kubiš threw a bomb at Heydrich's car. Heydrich was fatally injured by the explosion. Both the parachutists managed to escape the scene of the assassination and hide in places that had been prepared in advance. On June 4, 1942, after lingering for days, Heydrich died in Bulovka hospital in Prague from blood poisoning caused by pieces of upholstery entering his body when the bomb thrown at his car exploded. Hitler, the ''Führer'' of the German Reich, was shocked by the assassination and enraged, ordered Kurt Daluege, Heydrich's replacement, to `wade through blood` to find Heydrich's killers. The Germans began an unprecedentedly massive and bloody retaliation campaign targeting the entire Czech population.

The mourning speeches at Heydrich's funeral in Berlin were not yet over when on June 9, 1942 the decision was made to `make up for his death`. Karl Hermann Frank, Secretary of State for the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, reported from Berlin that the ''Führer'' had commanded the following:
#Shoot all adult men to death
#Transport all women to a concentration camp
#Gather the children suitable for Germanization, then place them in SS families in the Reich and bring the rest of the children up in other ways
#Burn down the village and level it entirely.
Horst Böhme, SS Commander of the C division of the Einsatzgruppe, acted on the commands immediately. Members of German security police (''SS'') surrounded the village of Lidice, blocking all avenues of escape. The Nazi regime chose this village because of its residents' known hostility to the occupation, and because Lidice was suspected of harboring local resistance partisans. The entire population was rounded up and taken to a Horak farm. Women and children were taken to the school building from where they were transported. Mattresses were taken from neighbouring houses where they were stood up against the wall of the barn. Shooting of the men commenced around seven in the morning. The men were brought out in groups of five. Böhme thought the executions were proceeding too slowly and ordered that ten men be executed at a time. The dead were left lying were they fell and the newly brought out soon-to-be victims had to first walk past them and stand in front of them. The firing squad always took two steps back and the scene of horror repeated itself. The men were not blindfolded and were taken to the place of execution without bonds. This spectacle continued until the afternoon hours when there were 173 dead bodies lying in the Horak farm orchard. The next day, another nineteen men who were working in a mine, along with seven women, were sent to Prague, where they also were shot.
After the forced separation from their children, 184 women of Lidice were loaded on trucks on June 12, 1942 and driven to Kladno train station and forced into a special passenger train guarded by a large escort. In the morning of June 14, 1942 the train halted in the railway siding where it was welcomed by several dozen armed women warders with dogs. Under constant shouting and verbal abuse, the Lidice women had reached their destination. They were in the concentration camp at Ravensbrück. On their arrival the Lidice women were first isolated in a special block. The women were involved in leather processing, road building, textile and ammunition factories. At the ammunition factory the slightest offense was punishable by standing and starving for many hours, or immersed in ice-cold water. Lack of hygiene, epidemics and contagious diseases spread and took most of the women. Some went mad and others were murdered with few surviving.
Eighty-eight Lidice children were transported to the area of the former textile factory in Gneisenaustreet of Łódź. Their arrival was announced by a telegram from Horst Böhme's Prague office which ended with, ". the children are only bringing what they wear. No special care is desirable." The care was minimal. The children were not fed sufficiently and a few babies cared for by the older girls were constantly crying with hunger. The children slept on plain floors and covered themselves with coats if they had any brought from home. They suffered from a lack of hygiene and from illnesses. Under commands from the camp management, no medical care was given to the children. Shortly after their arrival in Łódź, officials from the Central Race and Settlement branch chose seven children at random for Germanization. Adolf Eichmann ordered in late June the order for the massacre of the rest of the children. On July 1, 1942, the Lidice children were given the chance to write lettercards to their relatives. The few of them that did reach their addresses cannot be read without emotion. A card asking for news of Dad and Mum and for a shard of bread is amongst the most shattering accusations of Nazism. On July 2, 1942 all of the remaining 81 Lidice children were handed over to the Lodz Gestapo office, who in turn had them transported to the extermination camp at Chelmo 70 kilometers away. It is almost certain they were gassed to death on the very day of their arrival. Out of the 105 Lidice children, 82 died in Chelmno, 6 died in the German Lebensborn orphanages and 17 returned back home.
The village of Lidice was set aflame and the remains of the buildings were bulldozed, every last remaining piece of evidence being destroyed. Even those buried in the town cemetery were not spared. Their remains were dug up and destroyed. A film was made of the entire process by Franz Treml, a collaborator with German intelligence, Treml had ran a Zeiss-Ikon shop in Luzern Palace Prague. After the German occupation he became a filming adviser for the National Socialist German Workers Party (he became a Nazi.)
All together, about 340 people from Lidice died because of the German reprisal (192 men, 60 women and possibly 88 children).
A small Czech village called Ležáky was also destroyed two weeks after Lidice. Here both men and women were shot, and children were sent to concentration camps or 'Aryanized'.
The death toll resulting from the effort to avenge the death of Heydrich is estimated at 1,300. This count includes relatives of the partisans, their supporters, Czech elites suspected of disloyalty and random victims like those from Lidice.
Nazi propaganda had openly, and proudly, announced the events in Lidice, unlike other massacres in occupied Europe which were kept secret. The information was instantly picked up by Allied media and a movie about Lidice (The Silent Village, a project by Avigdor Dagan) was filmed in the United Kingdom soon after the event.

Lidice today

Although the village of Lidice was destroyed completely, it was rebuilt after the war, in 1949. Soon after the razing of the village, several towns in various countries were named after it (such as San Jerónimo-Lídice in Mexico City, Barrio Lídice and its Hospital in Caracas, Venezuela, Lídice de Capira in Panama, and towns in Brazil), so that the name would live on in spite of Hitler's intentions. A neighbourhood in Crest Hill, Illinois, was also renamed from Stern Park to Lidice. Lidice also became a woman's name in several countries. A square in the English city of Coventry, itself devastated during World War II, is named after Lidice.

A 1990s group statue, by academic sculptor Marie Uchytilova, 'The Memorial to the Children Victims of the War' stands today in the plain of Lidice and is composed of 82 statues of children (42 girls and 40 boys) aged 1 to 16, to honor them, them being murdered in the extermination camp at Kulm (Chełmno) in summer 1942. There is a Rose Park where the old village once was, surrounded by tall trees. There is a cross of thorns above the mass grave of the Lidice men. It is quiet and calm there. Today, rebuilt in an adjacent location, Lidice resembles its neighbours.

References

★ Zena Irma Trinka. ''A little village called Lidice: Story of the return of the women and children of Lidice.'' International Book Publishers, Western Office, Lidgerwood, North Dakota, 1947.

★ Eduard Stehlik. ''Lidice, The Story of a Czech Village.'' 2004. ISBN 80-86758-14-1

See also

★ Collective punishment

★ Reprisal

★ Sir Barnett Stross

External links

★ History of the village

★ Lidice Memorial

★ Official Website of Municipality

★ Recent (since 1990s) search for missing children

★ Photo series about destruction of Lidice by Reichsarbeitsdienst