Lidice
| Statistics | |
|---|---|
| Area | 4.7 km² |
| Population | 451 (2003) |
| Map | |
| Map of the Czech Republic highlighting Lidice | |
Lidice (Liditz in German) is a village in Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) which was completely eradicated by the Nazis during World War II.
History
The village is first mentioned in writing in 1318. After the industrialisation of the area, many of its people worked in mines and factories in the neighbouring cities of Kladno and Slaný.
Lidice Massacre
On May 27, 1942, the deputy chief of the Gestapo, Reinhard Heydrich, was on his way to Prague in his capacity as Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia, when his motorcade was attacked by the four men of a Czech SOE strike team as part of Operation Anthropoid. Five days later Heydrich died in hospital. Hitler, enraged, ordered Kurt Daluege, Heydrich's replacement, to wade through blood to find Heydrich's killers. The Germans began a massive retaliation campaign against the civilian Czech populace.
The best known of these assaults occurred on June 10. German security police surrounded the village of Lidice, blocking all avenues of escape. The Nazis chose this village because of its residents' known hostility to the occupation and because Lidice was suspected of harbouring local resistance partisans. The entire population was rounded up, and all men over sixteen years of age were put in a barn. They were shot the next day. Another nineteen men, who were working in a mine, along with seven women, were sent to Prague, where they were also shot. The remaining women were shipped to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where about a quarter of them died in the gas chambers or from overwork. The children were taken to the Gneisenau concentration camp, where they were sorted by racial criteria, and those deemed suitable for 'Aryanization' were shipped to Germany; the fates of many of these children remain unknown. The village itself was razed and bulldozed. A genuine film document, made by a German soldier, has survived.
All together, about 340 people died in the Nazi reprisal in Lidice. 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 proudly announced events in Lidice, unlike other massacres in occupied Europe which were kept in secret. The information was picked by Allied media and used in their propaganda (a movie about Lidice was filmed in Britain 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 (such as San Jerónimo-Lídice in Mexico City as well as towns in Brazil) took the name of Lidice, 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.
Today the village resembles its neighbours, with only a large memorial distinguishing it from the other villages in the area.
Ležáky was not rebuilt, and only a memorial remains now.
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