The Lidice massacre () was the complete destruction of the village of Lidice in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, which is now a part of the Czech Republic, in June 1942 on orders from Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and acting Reichsprotektor Kurt Daluege, successor to Reinhard Heydrich. It has gained historical attention as one of the most documented instances of German war crimes during World War II, particularly given the deliberate killing of children.
In reprisal for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in the late spring of 1942, all 173 men and boys from the village aged 15 years or older were killed on 10 June 1942. A further nine men from the village, who were not present at the time, were arrested and executed soon afterwards, along with eight men and seven women, who were already under arrest, and two boys, who had recently turned 15. Most of the 203 women and 105 children were sent to a makeshift detention center in a Kladno school, after which the women were deported to concentration camps. Nine children, who were considered racially suitable and thus eligible for Germanisation, were handed over to German families, and 82 (excluding 14 children either under a year old or born after the massacre) were sent to the Chełmno extermination camp, where they were gassed to death.
The Associated Press, quoting German radio transmissions it received in New York, said: "All male grownups of the town were shot, while the women were placed in a concentration camp, and the children were entrusted to appropriate educational institutions."The New York Times, Nazis Blot Out Czech Village; Kill All Men, Disperse Others, 11 June 1942 Approximately 340 people from Lidice were murdered in the German reprisal (192 men, 60 women and 88 children). After the war ended, only 143 women and 17 children returned.Jan Kaplan and Krystyna Nosarzewska, Prague: The Turbulent Century p. 241
Nazi propaganda openly and proudly announced the events at Lidice in direct contrast to the disinformation and secrecy involved with other crimes against civilian populations, with intense outrage occurring among Allied nations and particularly Anglosphere countries. The history has been depicted in multiple forms of media since the end of the conflict. Examples include two Hollywood movies made the year after the massacre, Hangmen Also Die! and Hitler's Madman, the internationally known drama film Operation Daybreak, and the composer Bohuslav Martinů composed the orchestral work Memorial to Lidice.Bohuslav Martinů – Památník Lidicím (Memorial to Lidice) , Outdoor life performance on the area of the Memorial, 09:05.
Background Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich
From 27 September 1941, SS-Obergruppenführer and General of Police Reinhard Heydrich had been acting as Reichsprotektor of the Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.Jan Kaplan and Krystyna Nosarzewska, Prague: The Turbulent Century p. 214 This area of the former state of Czechoslovakia had been occupied by Nazi Germany since 5 April 1939.
On the morning of 27 May 1942, Heydrich was being driven from his country villa at Panenské Břežany to his office at Prague Castle. When he reached the Kobylisy area of Prague, his car was attacked (on behalf of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile) by the Slovak and Czech soldiers Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš. Part of a team trained in Great Britain, the duo had parachuted into Bohemia in December 1941 as part of Operation Anthropoid.
After Gabčík's Sten gun jammed, Heydrich ordered his driver, SS-Oberscharführer Klein, to stop the car. When Heydrich stood up to shoot Gabčík, Kubiš threw a modified anti-tank grenade at Heydrich's car.Michel, Wolfgang, Britische Spezialwaffen 1939–1945: Ausrüstung für Eliteeinheiten, Geheimdienst und Widerstand, p. 72 The resulting explosion wounded both Heydrich and Kubiš. Heydrich sent Klein to chase Gabčík on foot and, in an exchange of fire, Gabčík shot Klein below the knee. Kubiš and Gabčík managed to escape the scene. A Czech woman went to Heydrich's aid and flagged down a delivery van. Heydrich was placed on his stomach in the back of the van and taken to the emergency room at Bulovka Hospital. A splenectomy was performed, and the chest wound, left lung, and diaphragm were debrided. Himmler ordered Karl Gebhardt to fly to Prague to assume care. Despite a fever, Heydrich's recovery appeared to progress well. Hitler's personal doctor Theodor Morell suggested the use of the new antibacterial drug sulfonamide, but Gebhardt thought that Heydrich would recover and declined the suggestion. On 4 June Heydrich died from septicaemia caused by pieces of horsehair from the upholstery and his clothing entering his body when the bomb exploded.
Reprisals Late in the afternoon of 27 May, SS-Gruppenführer Karl Hermann Frank proclaimed a state of emergency and placed a curfew in Prague.Jan Kaplan and Krystyna Nosarzewska, Prague: The Turbulent Century p. 239 Anyone who helped the attackers was to be executed along with their families. A search involving 21,000 men began and 36,000 houses were checked. By 4 June, 157 people had been executed as a result of the reprisals but the assassins had not been found and no information was forthcoming.
The eulogies at Heydrich's funeral in Berlin were not yet over when, on 9 June, the decision was made to "make up for his death". Frank, Secretary of State for the Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, reported from Berlin that the Führer had commanded the following concerning any village found to have harbored Heydrich's killers:Jan Kaplan and Krystyna Nosarzewska, Prague: The Turbulent Century p. 246
Execute all men Transport all women to a concentration camp Gather the children suitable for Germanisation, then place them in SS families in the Reich and bring the rest of the children up in other ways Burn down the village and level it entirely
Václav Říha letter
Lidice was targeted due to events stemming from a love letter sent by a man named Václav Říha to his lover Anna Maruščáková, neither of whom were from Lidice. Seeking to end his extramarital affair with Maruščáková, Říha wrote to her implying he had taken part in the Heydrich assassination, stating he had done "what he wanted to do" and that the two would never see each other again. He formulated the text of the letter in such a way that Maruščáková would interpret his "disappearance" as the departure of a resistance member or perhaps the assassin himself into the underground. The letter was delivered on 3 June 1942 to the factory where Maruščáková worked, but because Maruščáková was sick and at home that day, factory owner Jaroslav Pála opened the letter instead. Pála contacted the police, who in turn notified the Gestapo. Even though it was subsequently revealed that Říha had nothing to do with the assassination, Maruščáková when interrogated said that Říha had asked her to send greetings to the parents of Josef Horák, a Lidice man who had left to join the British Royal Air Force. This gave the Gestapo the pretext to target Lidice.
Massacre Men Horst Böhme, the SiPo chief for the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, immediately acted on Frank's orders. On the evening of 9 June 1942, members of the Ordnungspolizei and SD (Sicherheitsdienst) surrounded the village of Lidice, blocking all avenues of escape. The Nazi regime claimed it chose this village because its residents were suspected of harbouring local partisans and were associated with aiding Operation Anthropoid team members.Williamson, Gordon, Loyalty is my Honor p. 87
All men of the village 15 years of age or older (and one 14-year-old) were rounded up and taken to the farm 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 to prevent ricochets. The shooting of the men commenced at about 7:00 am on 10 June. At first the men were 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. This continued until the afternoon hours when there were 173 dead. Another nine men, who were not in the village that day (seven workers on a night shift, one in hospital, and one who hid for several days in the forest) were arrested and executed in Prague-Kobylisy soon afterwards. Also executed were eight men and seven women who had already been arrested because they had relations serving with the Czechoslovak armies in exile in the United Kingdom, and two boys who were discovered to have recently turned 15.
Only three male inhabitants of the village survived the massacre, two of whom were in the Czechoslovak Air Force and stationed in England at the time. The only adult man from Lidice who was actually in Czechoslovakia and survived the massacre was František Saidl (1887–1961), Lidice's former deputy mayor, who had been arrested at the end of 1938 for accidentally killing his son Eduard Saidl. He was imprisoned for four years and had no knowledge of the massacre until he returned home on 23 December 1942. Upon discovering the massacre, he was so distraught he turned himself in to SS officers in the nearby town of Kladno, confessed to being from Lidice, and even said he approved of the assassination of Heydrich. Despite confirming his identity, the SS officers laughed at him and turned him away; he went on to survive the war.
Women and children
The women and children of Lidice were first taken to Lidice village school, then to the nearby town of Kladno, where they were detained in the grammar school for three days. In Kladno, the children were separated from their mothers. On 12 June 1942, 184 women of Lidice were loaded on trucks, driven to Kladno railway station and forced into a special passenger train guarded by an escort. On the morning of 14 June, the train arrived at the concentration camp at Ravensbrück. The camp authorities tried to keep the Lidice women isolated, but were prevented from doing so by other inmates. The women were forced to work in leather processing, road building, textile and ammunition factories. 12 remaining Lidice women were sent to Ravensbrück in the following months.
In Kladno, three children judged to possess Nordic features were selected on the spot for Germanisation. Seven children younger than one year old were taken to a foundling hospital in Prague-Vinohrady, and in August 1943 (except one child who died) were moved to a children's shelter in Prague-Krč. On 13 June, 88 Lidice children were transported to the area of the former textile factory in Gneisenau Street in 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 and they suffered from a lack of hygiene and from illnesses. By order of 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 additional children for Germanisation.Lynn H. Nicholas, Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web p. 254 The few children considered racially suitable for Germanisation were handed over to SS or other German families.