The forgotten people of a country erased
Early History
“The Czech Republic is a country located in central Europe. It comprises the historical provinces of Bohemia and Moravia along with the southern tip of Silesia, collectively often called the Czech Lands”(Czech Republic Britannica). The capital city, Prague, is located in the province of Bohemia and has been called the “handsomest city in Europe” since the beginning of the 1800’s. Some say that only the French focus as much on their capital city as the Czechs. Generations of artists have been brought in by the rulers of the country to create this city that beguiles musicians, poets, and writers and has for hundreds of years. It is a country that has long been known for its breweries, vineyards, and industry. History is never offhand between beautiful castles and manor houses. During the past 1,000 years, the country has been reshaped and the population shuffled around with their peak of prosperity landing between the 13th and 14th centuries. During that time they were the Kingdom of Bohemia. Fast forward to the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the conclusion of World War One, and we see the first time that Czechs and Slovaks came together to be Czechoslovakians. The portion of the country with German roots, dating back to cooperation of the countries during the Holy Roman Empire, became Nazi sympathizers with the rise of Adolf Hitler to power in 1933.
The World War Two Experience
The Animoto video above looks at some of the main events from the beginning of the invasion and the early days of Czechoslovakia under the rule of Nazi Germany.
Memory of ExileA lesser known book that addresses the topic of the Czech government during their exile in England is The Czech Connection: The Czechoslovak Government in Exile in London and Buckinghamshire. The book, compiled by Neil Rees was featured in an interview on Radio Prague back in 2005. The radio commentator, Brian Kenety gives us a look into the book's plot and some of the history of the location since. "When the wartime blitz hit London in 1940, Czechoslovak President in exile Edvard Benes was urged to pack up and seek refuge in the English countryside. For the next five years, Benes and his wife lived in The Abbey, a country estate owned by his friends, the Rothschild family, in the picturesque village of Aston Abbots. His cabinet found safe haven at Wingrave Manor in a nearby village, while some 100 Czechoslovak soldiers kept a watchful eye. Local history enthusiast Neil Rees has a new book on the period, full of local colour and drawing heavily on the stories of villagers and Czechoslovak veterans alike."
For the full commentary visit the Radio Prague link below: http://www.radio.cz/en/section/curraffrs/unearthing-the-czech-connection-in-ww-ii-era-buckinghamshire
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The Memory of German Atrocities
Once a sizeable, peaceful Czech village in Bohemia, Lidice is now a mere memory. It is not a village any more, but is rather nothing more than a flat memorial to a nation's shame. Never, so long as written record endures, will the darkness associated with its name be forgotten. On May 26, 1942, the Deputy Reich Protector, S.S. Obergruppenfuehrer Reinhard Heydrich, or the "Butcher Heydrich" as he was more deservedly known, was murdered by Czech patriots. Theirs was a long-premeditated plot to rid their country of this evil man. As they shot at him Heydrich slumped forward in his car, struck by a revolver bullet in the chest. Mortally wounded, he died eight days later.
Following this assassination of one of their Party leaders, the Nazis launched a great cry for vengeance. Hitler, in a personal telephone call to Dr. Karl Hermann Frank, State Secretary to the Reich, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, demanded the execution of 40,000 Czech citizens; they were to be disposed of through the "Standgerichte", or courts of law (only in name). Hitler's order was equal to condemning them to death without trial. Frank, later executed by a Czech war crimes court, testified that he, by a personal interview with Hitler, had this order withdrawn. But other measures, scarcely less horrifying, were introduced and pursued with Nazi thoroughness. Ordinances were published condemning to death not only the patriots responsible but all who might shelter them, might harbour knowledge of their whereabouts or hold any clue whatsoever to their identity or existence. Moreover, the entire families of such "accomplices" would suffer a like punishment. Immense rewards were offered to informers. But, thanks to Czech loyalty and the common hatred of their oppressors, no trace of the perpetrators was disclosed even though many people knew their secrets. The Gestapo hunted first for evidence then for scapegoats. Finally, agents intercepted a postcard in the Czech mail in which the writer suggested that “perhaps someone in Lidice could tell a thing or two about the Heydrich case”. Not more than that. A mere "perhaps". And, as later evidence showed, this suggestion was utterly unfounded, a remark put down in innocence and without any malice. Lidice, however, caught the Nazis' eye. One further reason added suspicion. The Nazis, according to their lists of resistance members, knew that three members of a family in Lidice had escaped to England and were serving with the Czech Armoured Brigade. Under the direction of Dr. K. H. Frank, a fearsome retaliation was ordered. Lidice was to be razed and its male inhabitants exterminated. On June 9, 1942, six days after Heydrich's death, the reprisal plan was launched. S.S. men, filling ten Wehrmacht trucks, arrived. They threw a perimeter around the village. All inhabitants were confined to their homes. People with work to do there were allowed through and their return prevented. Rumours passed from mouth to mouth in the village. They merged quickly enough into realities. A woman tried to break the perimeter. As she ran, an S.S. man shot her in the back. A 12-year-old boy also tried to run. He too was shot as he fled. With the perimeter secure and all means of communication cut off, the Gestapo acted. They locked the women and children in the school and the male inhabitants in the cellars, barns and stables of the Horak farm. They searched every house, but found no trace of incriminating evidence. In the Horak farm, a remarkable atmosphere of spiritual calm prevailed. Each man, some of them boys, knew he was going to die and perhaps not peacefully. In their midst moved a patriarchal figure, the 73-year-old Father Sternbeck. All night he prayed for the souls of these humble and innocent villagers. They knelt with him, a doomed company. Morning came – the morning of June 10, 1942 – the last day in the life of Lidice. A firing squad, 30 strong, of Ordnungspolizei reported from Prague at 3:30am. They were warned under peril of death not to disclose that they had ever heard of the village. In tens, the men of the village were led out from the Horak farm to the yard behind the barn. Here, their executioners waited. The killings went on intermittently until 4 p.m. At one period Dr. K. H. Frank arrived, in full uniform, just to see how smoothly his orders were being carried out. According to evidence given at his trial four years later, he expressed the desire that "corn should grow where Lidice stood". As the light was good and several Germans had cameras, the executioners let themselves be photographed in groups besides the bodies of their victims. From these prints, some of which have passed into the possession of the Czech Government, two facts emerge. One, the extreme youth of several members of the execution squad. One or two could not have been more than 16 years old. Secondly, the pictures testify to careful preliminary arrangements, such as the stacking of large piles of straw and mattresses against the barn wall to prevent bullets from ricocheting. The next day, Jewish slave labourers from Terezin came to bury the massacred. They dug a large communal pit near the execution site and piled the bodies into it, some indiscriminately, others head to toe. They poured quicklime over them, and finally covered the pit with boarding. Altogether this grave, designed to by unknown and unrecorded, contained 172 men and boys aged 16 and up. A different fate, though in some respect more horrible, befell the remaining women and children of Lidice. The 195 women and girls herded into the school were deported to Ravensbruck Concentration Camp. There, 42 of them died from maltreatment; seven others were gassed and three declared missing. Four of these women, being expectant mothers, were first sent to a maternity home in Prague. It is believed that their children were murdered. The mothers, later moved to Ravensbruck, never saw them after birth. Two or three other Lidice women bore children in Ravensbruck. The children of Lidice were all torn from their mothers – 90 to go to Lodz, Poland, after which they were transferred to Gneisenau. Other Lidice children, the very youngest, were sent for special examination by "racial physicians" at the German children's hospital in Prague. Their blood was deemed to be of "Herrenvolk" quality. They were then deported to Germany and renamed with German names. Only the merest handful of these children have been traced since the end of the war. It was not enough, for Nazi conceptions of vengeance, to kill and scatter the people. The village itself had to be erased. The Nazis placed canisters of oil and other flammable materials inside shops and dwellings and torched them until the whole main street was ablaze. As Lidice blazed and smoked, a German film unit photographed each phase of the obliteration. This film was shown at the Nuremberg Courthouse when the Russian Prosecution presented it as evidence of Nazi mass destruction of villages. It is a vivid documentary, and in contrast to burning village shops, destroyed implements, and dead animals one sees groups of smartly dressed S.S. officers, studying the ruins with their field glasses, and joking together, as the village collapses in smoke and flame. The village became a waste, a field of hidden skulls. Although many other villages in Eastern Europe, including hundreds of Soviet villages, shared the same fate of Lidice. There is, however, only one Lidice. Only one name in Europe to symbolize mass murder of an entire community. An edited version of an article: Fortinbras, John, comp. "The Truth About Lidice." The War Illustrated, September 26, 1946, 355-56. |
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