Ležáky — a hamlet connected to the Libuše radio
Story period: settlement from the 18th century · destroyed 24 June 1942 · memorial grounds
Location: destroyed Ležáky in the Chrudim region; today’s memorial grounds
Ležáky was a small hamlet with a mill and families working in nearby quarries. In spring 1942 the mill concealed SILVER A’s Libuše radio, linking the domestic resistance to London. After the network was exposed, the Nazis burned the settlement on 24 June, removed its inhabitants and murdered most of them. Ležáky was not a base of ANTHROPOID itself.
A hamlet near the quarry
18th century–1941
Ležáky comprised several households and a mill.
The Ležáky Memorial records nine buildings, including the mill, and 54 inhabitants at the time of destruction. Families worked in quarrying, agriculture and embroidery. In a settlement this small, losing one household meant losing a substantial part of the community.
The link to London
January–June 1942
SILVER A’s radio used several hiding places.
SILVER A reached the Protectorate on the same flight as ANTHROPOID, but had a different mission: intelligence work and radio contact with London. Jiří Potůček began transmitting with Libuše from Hluboká quarry in January. The memorial dates its installation in Jindřich Švanda’s Ležáky mill to April; it had not broadcast continuously from the settlement since January.
From Čurda’s testimony to the raid
16–23 June 1942
The search for the network also reached the Pardubice region.
Karel Čurda reported to the Gestapo on 16 June. The ensuing investigation gradually exposed SILVER A’s Pardubice network. Libuše left Ležáky on 18 June, but its earlier presence and residents’ assistance had already endangered the settlement. This connection concerned SILVER A; Ležáky should not be presented as a direct operational base for Gabčík and Kubiš.
The settlement’s destruction
24 June 1942
The Nazis took residents to Pardubice and burned their homes.
On 24 June, security forces sealed off Ležáky, removed its inhabitants and looted and burned all nine buildings. According to the Ležáky Memorial, 33 adults were shot at Pardubice’s Zámeček that evening; others were murdered later. Children were separated from their families: eleven were murdered at Chełmno, while sisters Jarmila and Marie Šťulíková survived the war.
A destroyed place becomes a memorial
after 1942
Demolition continued and the hamlet was not rebuilt.
Removal of Ležáky’s remains continued after the fires, into 1943. Unlike rebuilt Lidice, Ležáky was not restored as a residential settlement. Today’s memorial grounds commemorate the original homes and victims. A memorial’s position does not, by itself, prove the exact location of every event in 1942.
The location is the destroyed settlement and present memorial grounds. Without a verified historical footprint or mill position, no exact event point is asserted. Hluboká quarry, where the radio operated earlier, is a separate place.
Explore further
- The Heydrich Terror
the settlement’s destruction formed part of the June repression
- Operation ANTHROPOID
the related but separate SILVER A team travelled on the same flight
- Lidice
another village destroyed in the same wave of Nazi repression, but selected for a different reason