Lidice

This weekend, my sisters and I made an excursion to the nearby town Lidice, which was destroyed during the Second World War as retribution for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. The Lidice massacre is noted for its completely arbitrary nature as an example of wartime collective punishment. The entire male populace of the town was executed, and the women and children were sent to concentration and extermination camps – only a few “racially eligible” children were placed with SS families.

After the war, a museum and several monuments were built where the village used to be. Of the houses, nothing but the foundations and a few destroyed walls remain.     

The museum
An obelisky thingy
The main part of the memorial
More of the same
More of the same
A relief depicting the history of Lidice
Another part of the relief
The memorial
Memorial to the Children Victims of the War
Detail of the same
Detail of the same
The entire memorial
The main memorial building and the museum
A statue
The memorial as seen from near the stream
An altar erected on top of the foundations of the church in Lidice
The same
The statue of a grieving mother
The same, facing Lidice
Lidice as seen from across the stream

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