Grandduchess 42,
Lidice or Liditz in German is a community at Okres Kladno in Czechoslowakia, near to Prague. On the 27th of May 1942 The so called SS-Reichprotector Reinhard Heydrich was badly injured by a assassinator at Prague and died on the 4th of June. Now the SS- and SA- troops were fighting against everyone who could be against Hitler etc., they called such activities "Vergeltungsmaßnahmen", like a revenge. On the 9th of June 1942 they attacked Lidice with the help of the local police, they blocked the streets, cause they thought that the assassinators were living there- but it was a wrong hidden wink. At night 172 men who were older than 15 years had to gather at a farm (of the family Horak) and they were shot on the next day. Some men who were working nightshift in a cole mine and their pregnant women were taken to Prague- the men were shot, the women could give birth to the babies.
195 women of Lidice were taken to Ravenbrueck, concentration camp, 52 of them died there. This happened to the pregnant women, too.
The SS- and SA- troops burnt down Lidice, the village is rebuilt today, about 300 km away from the old place, which is a museum.
The fate of the 98 children at Lidice is sad. Some of them, who had an arian outlook, where taken to Germany to be adopted by German families, others were taken to Litzmannstadt, Ghetto- so 82 of them died in the gas chambers at Kulmhof concentration camp together with toddlers from Lezaky.
The monument was made by Marie Uchytilová and placed at Lidice (where the former village had been). There is a book about the tragedy, but be warned that the story is sad and illustrated with photos of women who find their husbands and sons dead.
It s the same tragic story like Televag at Norway, Mala Czermna, where 50 Jewish children and a nun were burnt in a school house and so on...
To the monument of the Romanovs (or statue)- I think it s at Novgorod museum, right?
