[northernlights]

The lot of the Czech nation was complicated by the decision of the Czechoslovak government in London to get rid of Heydrich. The operation by Czechoslovak parachutists in which Heydrich was mortally wounded on May 27, 1942 brought reprisals which shocked the whole world.

The vague contents of a letter, addressed to a woman employed in a Slaný factory and held back by the factory co-owner. F. Pala, roused the suspicions of the Kladno Gestapo that there was some connection between Heydrich's assassination and the Horák family in Lidice who had a son serving in the Czechoslovak army in Britain. Although investigations and a house-search produced no compromising material, weapons or transmitter, the Nazis needed to carry out an act of vengeance for the death of "an outstanding man of the German nation", and for this they chose the people of Lidice.

The tragedy ot this little village and its 503 inhabitants began on June 10, 1942 a few hours after midnight. The events of that summer day are recorded in a documentary, filmed by those who actually carried out that brutal crime against innocent people. Although a silent film, it can be understood by all people, irrespective of their colour or tongue. This film served as document No. 379 at the Nuremberg trials of the Nazi German leaders in 1945. Parts of the film are shown on a video recording at the Lidice museum.

At the orders of K. H. Frank 173 Lidice men were shot on that fateful day in the garden of the Horak farm. The women and children were taken to the gymnasium of Kladno grammar school. Three days later the children were taken from their mothers and, except for those selected for re-education in German families and babies under one year of age, were poisoned by exhaust gas in specially adapted vehicles in the Nazi extermination camp at Chełmno upon Nerr in Poland. The women were sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp which usually meant quick or lingering death for the inmates.

Having rid the village of its inhabitants, the Nazis began to destroy the village itself, first setting the houses on fire and then razing them to the ground with plastic explosives. They did not stop at that but proceeded to destroy the church and even the last place of rest - the cemetery. ln 1943 all that remained was an empty space. Until the end of the war the sight was marked by notices forbidding entry.

[northernlights]

A timeless memorial to the small angels of Lidice.

[Tiffany32]

Originally Posted by northernlights ↗

A timeless memorial to the small angels of Lidice.

Great Post ! I'd like to add to your post by saying Karl Hermann Frank was publicly hanged on May 22nd 1946 in Prague after being convicted of war crimes . That no good bastard got what he deserved.. and although (he was) not as bad and ruthless as Reinhard Heydrich he was still a major nazi war criminal. At the end of the war he held the rank of SS Obergruppenführer (the same as Heydrich at the time of his death in early June 1942 )Below is a picture of Frank in full uniform just before the end of the war in late 1944. Another while he's in his cell (doesn't look like he got the 5 star treatment does it ?) another one of him just before his hanging and the very last one is his autopsy pic . Justice was done at least in his case.

[Sharon]

Sick evil bastards

The memorial is very moving.

[ak74]

fuck him,, hope it hurt

[northernlights]

This amazing lady spent 20 years making the children from bronze....so they could go back home.

[northernlights]

Originally Posted by Sharon. ↗

Sick evil bastards

The memorial is very moving.

I agree. I want to go see it.

[K9Grip]

From what I understand Heydrich's son wants to renovate their house in Prague. I say let the mother fucker burn.
I'll be the first to say that we need to be able to remember history (as that is my field and love), but Heydrich as well as all his fellow cronies and their property need to be flushed from the earth. They only stand as place for sickos to worship.

[Ratzerfratzer]

Beautiful memorial.

[Tiffany32]

Also there was another Higher SS and Police Leader involved besides Karl Hermann Frank, his name was Kurt Daluege (who was appointed the deputy protector of Bohemia and Moravia shortly after the "Butcher of Prague" died of his wounds). Infuriated by Heydrich's death, Hitler ordered the arrest and execution of 10,000 randomly selected Czechs. But after consultations with Karl Hermann Frank, he tempered his response. The Czech lands were an important industrial zone for the German military, and indiscriminate killing could reduce the region's productivity. Hitler ordered a quick investigation. Intelligence falsely linked the assassins to the towns of Lidice and Ležáky. A Gestapo report stated that Lidice, 22 km north-west of Prague, was suspected as the hiding place of the assailants as it was known that several Czech army officers, then in England, had come from there. Further, the Gestapo had found a resistance radio transmitter in Ležáky. On 9 June, after discussions with Himmler, Daluege and Karl Hermann Frank, Hitler ordered brutal reprisals (which both Frank and Daluege then carried out). Over 13,000 people were arrested, deported, and imprisoned. Beginning on 10 June, all males over the age of 16 in the village of Lidice, and the village of Ležáky, were murdered. All the women in Ležáky were also murdered. All but four of the women from Lidice were deported immediately to Ravensbrück concentration camp (four were pregnant – they were forcibly aborted at the same hospital where Heydrich had died and then sent to the concentration camp). A number of children were chosen for Germanization, but 81 were killed in gas vans at the Chełmno extermination camp in Poland. Both towns were burned and the ruins of Lidice were levelled. At least 1,300 people were massacred after Heydrich's death. After Germany's unconditional surrender in May 1945, Daluege was arrested by British troops in Lübeck Germany and was interned at Nuremberg until September 1946, when he was extradited to Czechoslovakia to face trial in his involvement in war crimes . Kurt Daluege was hanged at Pankrác prison in Prague on October 24, 1946, after having been found guilty by a Czechoslovak court of war crimes committed in the territory of occupied Czechoslovakia in 1942 and 1943. So when you look with sadness at what took place to those two villages and those poor people involved and the families..please take solace in the fact that both of these bastards that did this(carried out Hitler's order) were executed and Hitler and Himmler of course both commited suicide so Justice was done for the survivors of those two villages at least. Below is a picture of this no good son of a bitch in full Nazi uniform, next one during his trial and that last one is after the execution (dead in that one)... good riddance may you (and the others that took part in this) all rot in Hell.

Oberstgrupperführer Kurt Daluege