Lidice and Terezin

As a junior in high school, forty seven years ago, I listened intently to my English teacher read a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay that affected me, and I believe the other students, profoundly, which I never forgot. THE MURDER OF LIDICE was published in 1942, a year after an unspeakable atrocity, perpetrated by the highest echelon of the Nazi murder machine, obliterated all life from the peaceful Czech village of Lidice. This act was Hitler's revenge for the 1941 assassination by British trained Czech partisans of Reinhard Heydrich. Heydrich had been instrumental at the Wanasee Conference to determine the final solution of the Jews with Eichman, and when the Nazis conquered adjoining lands by force, he became the hated imperial ruler sweeping into Czech territories demanding cooperation and loyalty. So why select this little village? It was fairly arbitrary. The Nazis needed to act swiftly and zeroed in with some false suppositions to make an example of their power in case there were any resistance sympathizers.

The poem describes the plight of the ordinary people; fathers who used to be children playing in the streets, mothers concerned for the children and the little ones ripped away from their parents. Even the dogs, who lay alongside their dying masters, licking the blood draining from the bullet riddled bodies, were savagely massacred. Under premeditated instructions from Hitler, the troops went into Lidice and lined the men up against a farmer's wall and shot them in cold blood, transported the women to a concentration camp, and disposed of the children, most by gas chamber, except for a few "suitable" ones adopted out to SS families.  The only survivors at war's end were 17 out of 105 children, and 153 women. 1,300 died as a result of this purge, including relatives of suspected partisans and others caught in the dragnet.

The small museum at Ludice is stark, dark, and uncomfortable. The space is divided into subject sections by grey concrete walls. Each section displays a different aspect of life before the atrocity and some of the historical setting through photos, films and objects. One area showed a heartbreaking photo of the smiling children outside their small school. Another display was a little girl's embroidered dress. Nancy was struck by the very large hem, doomed to never be let out. 

The most poignant corner for me was the film footage of Heydrich delivering heady speeches to the Czech people amidst huge crowds in beautiful Prague. Against his severe dictatorial decrees to his newly conquered subjects, and inflammatory patriotic rhetoric for he real fatherland, individual headshots of the children taken from the school photo were flashed on the nearby wall. There were even snapshots taken by a Nazi soldier of the events. No sign if life remained. Even the trees, foliage, and farm livestock were destroyed. And to finish the deed, cemetery graves were unearthed and decimated. Moving video testimonies by women and children still alive were shown at the end of the exhibit. You couldn't watch with dry eyes.

The place where the town had been is a beautiful, peaceful memorial park. There are a few individual memorials sprinkled throughout, but the most visited is the bronze sculpture depicting the likeness of each child from the village.

 Just outside this area is a lovely tree lined boulevard with homes built after the war for the few survivors who wanted to come back. A group of British miners pitched in to help construct these homes in solidarity with Lidice's miners. A very positive contribution in this sad place is a beautiful art exposition building where children's art is displayed. Every year they sponsor a challenge open to children from any country in the world in any art medium. It is juried, and I must say the hundreds of selections this year on the theme of
 "objects from my home" was enthralling. We only had a few minutes to view it, but I could have stayed for hours enjoying the sparkling creativity. 

After the crushing intensity of the visit in Lidice, it was a sprig of hope.

Theresienstadt

Terezin looks looks like a small US liberal arts college. No wonder they were able to fool the Red Cross into thinking the inmates were cared for and happy.  It was quite the opposite. There was a grand facade of normalcy perpetrated, of course until the unfortunates were put into cattle cars to be shipped to their deaths in extermination camps. In spite of the hardships, the human creative spirit soared. Music, theater and visual arts thrived.. The museum there, too vast to explore in one day has so many examples of musical compositions, portraits, graphic arts, creative writing, dramas, etc. It is amazing what humans are capable of under stress.  The barracks were crowded and sparse, and still, the social organizations of school and mutual aid were established.

  Children who perished

The memorial field near the crematorium is a dramatic testament. Once more we left stones from Jerusalem on an outside stone marker and on the trolley that wheeled into the crematorium.

The original Theresienstadt (small fortress )  built by Maria Teresa in the 1790s was built as a fort. It is just outside the place used for processing the Jews in the closed off town. The depraved, barren small fortress was used to torture and starve political prisoners. Allied POWs were also sent there who had made attempts to escape other camps. Their transport and their internment there was considered a war crime. Max and Karl were the lucky ones.