→

←

10 June 1942

The Lost Children of the Lidice Massacre

A small Czech town located 20km from Prague was annihilated on June 10, 1942, as an act of revenge for the assassination of Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich. All the men from the village who were over 15 years of age were executed. Most women and girls 16 years of age and older were deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp. The village was set on fire and the remains of the buildings destroyed with explosives. All the animals in the village were slaughtered as well.

Eighty-two statues of children are depicted in Marie Uchytilová’s “A Monument of children’s war victims”
Eighty-two statues of children are depicted in Marie Uchytilová’s “A Monument of children’s war victims”

Most of Lidice’s children were sent to Łódź in Poland. There, German doctors measured the children’s facial features, identifying those with “Aryan” characteristics as candidates for Germanization – a process by which suitably featured non-German children were adopted by German families. In total, nine children met the criteria and were sent to Puschkau, Poland, to learn German and begin the assimilation process. The remaining 80 children were sent to Chełmno extermination camp.

The event inspired Edna St. Vincent Millay, an American lyrical poet and playwright, to write this poem.

A Czech drama film Lidice (also known as Fall of the Innocent) was released in 2011.