The Real Lidice

After just writing about the Czech movie about Lidice I wanted to now focus on what the Germans did to that village and its people during World War 2. On May 27, 1942 Czech resistance fighters from London shot Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi who ruled German-occupied Czechoslovakia (he later died.) In response the Germans killed 157 people throughout the country. When the Czechs who killed Heydrich were got and killed by the Germans they found they had a link to the village of Lidice. Hitler then ordered the following on the inhabitants of Lidice: 1. Execute all adult men. 2. Transport all women to a concentration camp. 3. Gather the children suitable for Germanization and place them with SS families. The rest of the children would be killed. 4. Burn down the village and level it completely.

 

On June 10, 1942 173 men, 15 and older, of Lidice were rounded-up and shot in a farm. 203 women and 105 children from Lidice were rounded-up and kept in a nearby school. The children were taken from the women and sent to Lodz, Poland where 7 of them were chosen for Germanization. On July 2, 1942 Adolf Eichmann sent the rest to the Chelmno Death Camp where they were murdered in gas vans. The women were sent to Ravensbruck Concentration Camp in Germany on June 14, 1942.

 

Out of the 105 children from Lidice, 82 were murdered in Chelmno, 6 died in SS orphanages while only 17 returned home after the war. Only 173 women from Lidice survived the war and returned to Czechoslovakia. The Germans proudly acknowledged their massacre during the war.

 

 After the war ended the Czechs kept the ruins of Lidice as a memorial and built a new Lidice nearby. It's important  to remember the men, women and children who the Germans imprisoned and/or murdered. They were innocent victims and should always be remembered.