“When future generations ask what we fought for, just tell them the story of Lidice.”
Frank Knox, US Naval Secretary (1940 - 1944)
LIDICE
In 1942, Lidice was a small Czech village located approximately 20kms from Prague and 8kms from the town of Kladno.
The village was first mentioned in chronicles in 1318, the oldest public building being St. Martin’s Church (1352).
The expansion of industries in Kladno, turned Lidice into a busy mining village in the second half of the 19th Century. In 1848 the village had 270 inhabitants occupying 33 houses and by 1890 the figures had risen to 506 inhabitants occupying 50 houses.
The Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia resulted in tragic consequences for Lidice.
In an effort to suppress the Czech anti-Facist resistance movement, Reinhard Heydrich, security police chief SS Obergruppenfuhrer, was appointed by Hitler and Himmler as “Reichsprotektor” in September 1941. During his reign as Reichsprotektor, more than 5,000 anti-Facist fighters and their helpers were imprisoned. Many people, including many from the Kladno district, were executed or died in the concentration camps.
On the 27th May 1942 Reinhard Heydrich was targeted by Czechoslovak SOE operatives, (Operation Anthropoid), parachuted into Czechoslovakia from England and although the attack was only partially successful at the time, Heydrich finally succumbed to his injuries on 4th June 1942.
As a result on the night of 9th/10th June 1942 German forces surrounded Lidice, murdered the male inhabitants by shooting, (those over the age of 15), and deported the women and children to labour camps, in the main Ravensbrück concentration camp.
The village was then set on fire and bulldozed to the ground. Following the razing of the village to the ground, a 100-strong German work party was sent to remover all visible traces of the village; re-route a stream running through it; and re-direct roads in and out. They then covered the entire site that the village had occupied with top soil and planted crops setting up a barb-wired fence around the site which had notices reading in both Czech and German:
“Anyone approaching this fence who does not halt when challenged, will be shot.”
This war crime was carried out by the Nazis as an act of revenge for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, (Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia), in Prague on 4th June 1942.
The links between those involved in Operation Anthropoid, (the code name of the operation to assassinate Heydrich), and the town of Lidice were tenuous at best if not completely false.
The alleged “link” was based upon the vague contents of a letter which was mailed to an inhabitant of Lidice and who was employed at the Slaný factory in Kladno. The letter never reached the intended recipient and was instead opened by the co-owner of the factory, one J.Pála, who then took the letter to the Gestapo in Kladno. The local Gestapo, under huge pressure from Berlin to achieve results for the assassination of Heydrich, drew the erroneous conclusion that there was some connection between the assassins and the Horák family in Lidice, (to whom the letter was addressed), who had a son serving in the Czechoslovak forces in Britain.
Although subsequent investigations, and house-to-house searches, produced no compromising material, weapons or any form of telegraphic equipment, connecting Lidice with Operation Anthropoid or any of the SOE agents that took part in the assassination, the Nazis were under pressure to “do something” and therefore were prepared to use the slightest pretext to take their revenge. In addition, Hitler was demanding the slaughter of 10,000 Czech people as reprisals for the assassination, although he was eventually persuaded that such an action would be very counter-productive for the Nazi war machine.
The operation to murder the male inhabitants of Lidice; deport the women and children and raze the town to the ground, was ultimately under the command and control of Higher SS and Police Leader of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Karl Hermann FRANK.
On the night of June 9th and 10th, the Nazis surrounded Lidice. Approximately 500 townspeople were ordered to gather in the towns square and the men and boys of 15 years or older, were separated from the women. The Nazis then almost immediately shot 173 male inhabitants of Lidice. Over the following weeks, a further 20 people who were residents of Lidice, but who were not present on the night of June 9th and 10th, were also murdered.
The remaining women and children of Lidice were sent to a nearby town where they were once again separated with women and girls of 16 years or older were deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp. Of the 203 women from Lidice, 53 died within the Nazi concentration camp system before the end of the war. 7 women had previously been murdered by the Nazis alongside the men of the families.
The majority of the children were sent to Łódź, a city in Poland where they were screened for what was considered to be the correct racial characteristics and to be selected for “Germanisation.” This process determined that 9 met the Nazi racial characteristic criteria. The Nazis then murdered the remaining 80 children from Lidice and evidence suggests that they were gassed at the Chełmno killing centre, sited 50kms north of Łódź.
Approximately 7 children from Lidice, all under the age of 1 year of age, were not transported to Chełmno, but sent to a German orphanage in Prague, together with 7 other children who born following the destruction of Lidice. Most of the new-borns were sent to orphanages. Of these 14 children, 8 survived the war.
Only three male inhabitants of the village survived the massacre. Two of the three were in the Czechoslovak armed forces in exile in the UK. The only adult man from Lidice who was in Czechoslovakia and who survived the atrocity, was Františeck Saidl (1887 - 1961). He was the former Deputy-Mayor of Lidice who had been arrested at the end of 1938 because on the 19th December 1938 he had accidentally killed his son Eduard. He was imprisoned for four years and had no idea about what had happened at Lidice. Saidl discovered the awful truth when he returned home on 23rd December 1942. Upon discovering the massacre and the story behind it, Saidl was so distraught that he turned himself in to SS officers based in the nearby town of Kladno, confessed to being from Lidice and even said that he approved of the assassination of Heydrich. It is alleged that the SS officers laughed and turned him away, leaving him to survive the war.
LEŽÁKY
The Nazi retaliation did not stop at Lidice and further reprisals were carried out throughout the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
The village of Ležáky, numbering about 50 inhabitants, was treated in the same way as Lidice.
During a search of the village by Gestapo agents, it is alleged that they found a radio transmitter that belonged to an underground resistance team who had parachuted into Czechoslovakia with members of the Operation Anthropoid Team.
On June 24th, 1942 all the adult residents, (both men and women numbering 33 people), were shot and 13 children were sent to Łódź. Of the 13 children, 2 sisters were selected for “Germanisation,” and the remaining children probably murdered at the Chełmno killing centre. As in the case of Lidice, the village of Ležáky was razed to the ground.
ADDITIONAL RETALIATIONS
In addition to the slaughter at Lidice and Ležáky, a total of 3,188 Czech citizens were arrested and 1,327 sentenced to death. Thousands of Czechs were deported to Lublin (also known as Majdanek), concentration camp in Poland.
AFTERMATH
Nazi propagandists filmed the physical destruction of Lidice and German Radio proudly reported on the complete destruction of the town. The purpose of the propaganda was to send the message about the repercussions of resisting Nazi rule.
In 1944, the exiled German author and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929, Thomas Mann wrote:
“The Nazis are stupid beasts. They wanted to consign the name of Lidice to eternal oblivion, and they have engraved it forever into the memory of man by their atrocious deed. Hardly anyone knew this name before they…razed it to the ground; now it is world famous.”
Lidice has never been forgotten and remains a powerful symbol and reminder of Nazi brutality. At the War Crimes Tribunal in Nuremberg, Lidice was cited as an example of Nazi War Crimes.
The leader of the reprisals, Karl Hermann FRANK, (Higher SS and Police Leader of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia), was arrested and tried by the Prague People’s Court in 1946 and sentenced to death for numerous war crimes including the destruction of Lidice and Ležáky and the murders committed. His execution was witnessed by 7 surviving women from Lidice.
On 10th June 1945, the Czechoslovak Government announced the Lidice would be re-built.
In 1947 the foundation stone of the new Lidice was laid 300 meters from the original site and construction of the new town commenced in 1948 very close to the ruins of the old town.
The new village, a “Garden of Peace and Friendship” was opened on 19th June 1955 where thousands of rose-bushes from various parts of the world were planted. The old Lidice, is now a memorial and museum site.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, it is worth repeating the words of Thomas Mann:
“They wanted to consign the name of Lidice to eternal oblivion, and they have engraved it forever into the memory of man by their atrocious deed. Hardly anyone knew this name before they…razed it to the ground; now it is world famous.”
VISITING LIDICE
The Lidice Memorial is located approximately 11km from Václav Havel Airport. The easiest way to travel to the Memorial is by car and there is easy parking at the memorial site.
Please see the following link in English for all information relating to the Lidice Memorial: https://www.lidice-memorial.cz/en/
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