Lidice: the destruction of an ordinary village
10 June 1942 and afterwards
The Nazis destroyed Lidice after a false investigative lead. It was not an ANTHROPOID base; its men, women and children all suffered.
Lidice had a school, church and local associations. A letter found in Slaný led the Gestapo to families of village-born men serving in the British air force. The investigation did not establish the village’s participation in the attack. Nevertheless, the Nazis selected it for exemplary punishment.
Sources, licences and acknowledgements
Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1993-020-26A · photographer unknown · Original · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE
Uses the previously cropped Commons version; Chrona variants are resized and compressed. Derived images retain CC BY-SA 3.0 DE.
On 10 June, 173 men were shot in Horák’s farm garden. Women were deported to Ravensbrück and children separated from them. The Lidice Memorial records 82 children murdered at Chełmno. Houses were burned, followed by efforts to erase the village from the landscape.
After the war, new Lidice was built beside the original village, which remained a memorial landscape. The map location recalls the loss of homes and everyday community life, not only a single day.
Places
- Lidice — a village destroyed in Nazi reprisals
The original village and today’s memorial grounds.
The Nazis destroyed Ležáky two weeks later. Its resistance connection was different: SILVER A’s radio station.