I was searching for some YoTube videos about Czech and Slovak moms and ended up looking at the World War II videos, specifically the town of Lidice. So here we go, from Czech moms to Lidice. Its history is, indeed, is incredibly tragic:

CZ: Pokousela jsem se na YouTube najit video o ceskych a slovenskych maminkach, ale skoncila jsem se divat na videa z druhe svetove valky a to hlavne na filmy o Lidicich. Historie tohoto mestecka je opravdu neuveritelne smutna:



LIDICE is a village in the Czech Republic which is built on the site of a previous village of the same name. As a part of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, it was destroyed under the direct orders of Heinrich Himmler in reprisal for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich (the Nazi deputy protector of Bohemia and Moravia) by a couple of Czech guys during World War II. On June 10, 1942, all 192 men over 16 years of age from the village were shot on the spot (including my Czech friend’s grandfather!) by the Germans forces. The rest of the people were sent to Nazi concentration camps where many women and almost all the children were killed.



Here is a wonderful YouTube introduction of the village of Lidice:



So, what exactly happened? “All men of the village were rounded up and taken to the farmstead of the Horák family on the edge of the village. Mattresses were taken from neighbouring houses where they were stood up against the wall of the Horáks’ barn. Shooting of the men commenced at about 7 a.m. At first the men shot in groups of five, but Böhme thought the executions were proceeding too slowly and ordered that ten men be shot at a time. The dead were left lying where 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 Horák farm orchard.”

“All the women and children of the village were taken first to Lidice village school. They were then taken to the nearby town of Kladno where they were detained in the grammar school for three days. The children were then forcibly separated from their mothers. 184 women of Lidice were loaded on trucks on June 12, 1942, driven to Kladno railway 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 met by several dozen armed women warders with dogs. Under constant shouting and verbal abuse, the Lidice women had reached their destination at 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.”

“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 Germanisation.”



“In late June Adolf Eichmann ordered the massacre of the remainder of the children. On July 1, 1942 the Lidice children were allowed to write postcards to their relatives. On July 2, 1942 all of the remaining 81 Lidice children were handed over to the Łódź Gestapo office, who in turn had them transported to the extermination camp at Chełmno 70 kilometers away, where they were gassed to death in Magirus gas vans. It is almost certain[citation needed] they were killed on the day of their arrival. Out of the 105 Lidice children, 82 died in Chełmno, six died in the German Lebensborn orphanages and 17 returned back home.”

Soon after the village was massacred, many towns in different 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 world would remember Hitler’s horrendous crime. A neighborhood in Crest Hill, Illinois, was renamed from Stern Park to Lidice. A square in the English city of Coventry, itself devastated during World War II, is named after Lidice. An alley in downtown Santiago, Chile is named after the town of Lidice. Lidice also became a woman’s name in various countries.

Here is yet another great historical YouTube video of the origings of the town of Lidice in Illinois (watch the first 2 minutes) – it almost brought tears into my eyes:



Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidice