Lidice
Lidice (German: Liditz) is a village in the Czech Republic just north-west of Prague which, as part of Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, was completely destroyed by the Germans in reprisal for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich during World War II. On June 10, 1942, all 192 men over 16 years of age from the village were murdered on the spot by the Germans in a much publicised atrocity. The rest of the population were sent to Nazi concentration camps where many women and nearly all the children were killed.
Operation Reinhard
Operation Reinhard (Aktion Reinhard or Einsatz Reinhard in German) was the code name given to the Nazi plan to murder Polish Jews in the General Government, and marked the beginning of the most deadly phase of the Holocaust, the use of extermination camps. During the operation, as many as two million people were murdered in Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka, almost all of whom were Jews.
The operation was named in memory of Reinhard Heydrich, the coordinator of the Endlosung der Judenfrage (Final Solution of the Jewish Question) - the extermination of the Jews living in the European countries occupied by the German 'Third Reich' during the Second World War. After the plans for the Final Solution were laid down at the Wannsee conference,
Massacre
Members of the German Army field police and SD (Sicherheitsdienst) 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.
All men of the village were rounded up and taken to the farmstead of the Horak family on the edge of the village. Mattresses were taken from neighbouring houses where they were stood up against the wall of the Horaks' barn. Shooting of the men commenced at about 7 a.m. At first the men shot in groups of five, but Bohme 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 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 were also shot.
Fate of The Women and Children of Lidice
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 riven 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, the Lidice women had reached their destination,
Ravensbruck Concentration Camp.
Eighty-eight Lidice children were transported to the area of the former textile factory in Gneisenaustreet of Lodz. Their arrival was announced by a telegram from Horst Bohme'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 Lodz, officials from the Central Race and Settlement branch chose seven children at random for Germanisation.
Adolf Eichmann ordered the massacre of the remainder of the children. Eighty one Lidice children were transported to The Chelmno Extermination Camp where they were gassed to death in "Gas Vans" Out of the 105 Lidice children, 82 died in Chelmno, six died in the German Lebensborn orphanages and 17 returned back home.
Berlin
After the Death of Heydrich The Germans began a massive and bloody retaliation campaign targeting the entire Czech population.
Hitler issued the following concerning any village found to have harboured Heydrich's killers:
Execute all adult men. Transport all women to a concentration camp. Gather the children suitable for Germanisation, then place them in SS families in the Reich.Bring the rest of the children up in other ways. Burn down the village and level it entirely.
