Germans obliterate Czech village

Early in the morning of June 10, 1942, all the inhabitants of the Czech village of Lidice were taken out of their homes, and all the men in the village – 192 in all – were killed, as were 71 women. The remaining women, numbering 198, were imprisoned in the Ravensbruck concentration camp, and of these, 143 returned to the village after the war. Of the 98 children who had been abducted and “put into educational institutions,” no more than 15 survived, most of them having been eventually deported to Chelmno and murdered there. In the presence of Frank and of Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Heydrich’s successor, as well as of photographers, Lidice was razed to the ground, the official reason being that the villagers had helped Heydrich’s assassins – an allegation that had no basis in fact. Lidice was rebuilt after the war and became a symbol of the Nazi reign of terror and the valor of the Czech resistance.