“This is Nazi Brutality”

At the orders of SS-Obergruppenführer Karl Hermann Frank (24 January 1898 – 22 May 1946), Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer in Böhmen und Mähren (“Higher SS and Police Leader in Bohemia and Moravia”), 173 Lidice men were shot on June 10, 1942, in the garden of the Horak farm. The women and children were taken to the gymnasium of Kladno grammar school. On June 12, the children were taken from their mothers and, except for those selected for re-education in German families and babies under 1 year of age, were poisoned by exhaust gas in specially adapted vehicles in the Nazi extermination camp at Chełmno, near Włocławek in Poland, in late June. The women were sent to Ravensbrück 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. In 1943, all that remained was an empty space.

Until the end of the war, the site was marked by notices forbidding entry. American social realist artist Ben Shahn (September 12, 1898 – March 14, 1969) was working for the Office of War Information (OWI), having come from the Farm Security Administration, like many photographers and artists. The enormity of the Nazi crime against the citizens of Lidice, Czechoslovakia, was made known to the peoples of the world by official German announcement on June 11, 1942, the very day of the destruction of the village. Shahn let the chilling and brazen announcement tell its own story of inhumanity by printing it as if it were a ticker tape. The hooded prisoner, cornered and chained, has no means of escape from the finality of the horrifying message. The small section of blue sky above is dark and ominous, heightening the sense of doom.

But this unforgettable portrayal of a great tragedy was too vivid. The order of 40,000 copies for distribution by a Czechoslovakian-American organization was canceled by a civilian morale expert on the grounds that the message was too violent. Shahn would create several other notable posters, among them “What Nazis Think Of German-Americans,” in 1943, and another titled “Remember December Seventh,” in 1941. The news of the destruction of Lidice spread rapidly around the world. But the Nazi intention to wipe the little Czech village off the face of the Earth did not succeed. Several villages throughout the world have adopted the name Lidice in memory of the original village, and many women born during that time, given the name Lidice, still bear it today. Lidice continued to live in the minds of people all over the world, and after the war, the Czechoslovak government’s decision to rebuild it was announced at a peace demonstration on June 10, 1945, in Lidice, which was attended by surviving Lidice women. 340 Lidice citizens were murdered by the Nazis, 143 Lidice women returned home after the war ended, and after a two-year search, 17 children were restored to their mothers.

In 1947, the foundation stone of a new Lidice was laid 300 meters away from the original site, and in May 1948, work began on building the 1st houses. A modern village of 150 houses gradually emerged with the enormous help of volunteers from all over Czechoslovakia and abroad. The present council house, post office, house of culture, and shopping center were built at the same time. The old site was preserved as a memorial, including the common grave of the Lidice men, a monument and museum, and between it and the new village, a “Garden of Peace and Friendship” was opened on June 19, 1955, where thousands of rose bushes from various parts of the world were planted.