10 June

Building by building, house after house detonated then razed to the ground, the graveyard desecrated, orchards dug up, and every family pet shot. And when it was over, troops ploughed the land flat and planted grain. Nothing was left and the name Lidice was removed from all German maps.

It was done in retaliation for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi controller of Bohemia and Moravia, on the orders of Hitler to teach the Czechs a final lesson of subservience and humility.

All 172 men and boys over age 16 in the village were shot and the women deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp where most died. The 98 younger children were either sent to concentration camps or gassed at Chemnitz on the orders of Adolf Eichmann.

They are no more, they are no more,
Jan, Karel, Vaclav, Antonin,
they are no more, they are no more,
Vit, Pavel, Michal, Frantisek,
they are no more, they are no more.
The men they herded for the slaughter,
the women they have driven off,
the feeding babe ripped from the breast,
they are no more.

Viktor Fischl