The Children of Lidice - picture heavy

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On 2 July 1942, most of the children of Lidice, a small village in what was then #Czechoslovakia, were handed over to the Łódź Gestapo office. Those 82 #children were then transported to the extermination camp at Chełmno 70 kilometers away. There they were gassed to death. This remarkable sculpture by by Marie Uchytilová commemorates them.

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THE HISTORY OF THE WAR CHILDREN’S VICTIMS MONUMENT

The destiny of Lidice children is the saddest part of the Lidice tragedy. The children were separated from their mothers in the gymnasium of the Grammar school in Kladno. The children were moved by train to Lodz where they had lived for 3 weeks in a collection camp.

The youngest child was only 1 year and six days old the oldest boys were under the age of 15, girls were under the age of 16. On June 2 their destiny was decided. Few children had secretly received correspondence lists so that they could write to their relatives. Afterwards there was a command for their movement to the extermination camp in Chelmn.

The victims were taken to a castle and were told that they would continue their journey. They had to undress; they only could keep underwear, a towel and a soap so that they could take a shower before the journey. Afterwards they were taken to a truck that was specifically modified for 80-90 people, where they were killed by exhaust gas in 8 minutes. This is where the trace of Lidice children ends.
MORE.
http://www.lidice-memorial.cz/mchild_history_en.aspx

Massacre

All men of the village were rounded up and taken to the farm of the Horák family on the edge of the village. Mattresses were taken from neighbouring houses where they were stood up against the wall of the Horáks' barn. The shooting of the men commenced at about 7.00 am. At first the men were shot in groups of five, but Böhme thought the executions were proceeding too slowly and ordered that ten men be shot at a time. The dead were left lying where they fell. This continued until the afternoon hours when there were 173 dead. Another 11 men who were not in the village that day were arrested and executed soon afterwards as were eight men and seven women already under arrest because they had relations serving with the Czech army in exile in the United Kingdom.

A total of 203 women and 105 children were first taken to Lidice village school. They were then taken to the nearby town of Kladno and detained in the grammar school for three days. The children were separated from their mothers. Four women were pregnant and were sent to the same hospital where Heydrich died. Their fetuses were forcibly aborted and the women sent to different concentration camps. On 12 June 1942, 184 women of Lidice were loaded on trucks, driven to Kladno railway station and forced into a special passenger train guarded by an escort. On the morning of 14 June 1942, the train halted on a railway siding at the concentration camp at Ravensbrück. On their arrival the Lidice women were first isolated in a special block. The women were forced to work in leather processing, road building, textile and ammunition factories.

Eighty-eight Lidice children were transported to the area of the former textile factory in Gneisenau Street in Łódź. Their arrival was announced by a telegram from Horst Böhme's Prague office which ended with: the children are only bringing what they wear. No special care is desirable. The care was minimal. They suffered from a lack of hygiene and from illnesses. By order of the camp management, no medical care was given to the children. Shortly after their arrival in Łódź, officials from the Central Race and Settlement branch chose seven children at random for Germanisation. The few children considered racially suitable for Germanisation were handed over to SS families.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidice


















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