{"id":51053,"date":"2023-04-01T23:49:40","date_gmt":"2023-04-01T21:49:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=51053"},"modified":"2026-04-01T00:21:56","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T22:21:56","slug":"lidice-and-lezaky-the-monuments-of-two-towns-that-were-wiped-off-the-map","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2023\/04\/01\/lidice-and-lezaky-the-monuments-of-two-towns-that-were-wiped-off-the-map\/","title":{"rendered":"L\u00eddice and Le\u017e\u00e1ky: the monuments of two towns that were wiped off the map"},"content":{"rendered":"

On June 4, 1942, members of the Czechoslovak resistance assassinated an important Nazi leader in Prague: Reinhard Heydrich.<\/p>\n

The Berlin 1939\u20131945 War Cemetery that honors 3,595 allied soldiers<\/a><\/rel>
\nThe Red Fi\u0107o: the story behind a curious monument with a 600 defeating a tank<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n

Heydrich, who was known as the \"Butcher of Prague\" for his cruelty, is considered one of the architects of the Holocaust. Hitler ordered a campaign of repression for his death, which literally wiped out two towns<\/strong> that were known to be nuclei of the Czechoslovak resistance against the German occupation.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
The place originally occupied by the town of L\u00eddice (Photo: Pam\u00e1tn\u00edk Lidice<\/a>).<\/div>\n

These towns were called L\u00eddice and Le\u017e\u00e1ky<\/strong>, and they were located in what is now the Czech Republic. In both cases, members of the Gestapo and the SS blocked all the exits and took people out of their houses.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
On this site the village of Le\u017e\u00e1ky was located. It was never rebuilt (Photo: Pam\u00e1tn\u00edk Le\u017e\u00e1ky<\/a>).<\/div>\n

In L\u00eddice, the Nazis shot all males over the age of 15<\/strong> and sent women and children to concentration camps. Children who had Aryan features were given to other families and the rest were killed in gas chambers. In total, the Germans murdered 340 residents in L\u00eddice (192 men, 60 women and 88 children).<\/strong> Of the 503 residents that L\u00eddice had in 1942, only 153 women and 17 children were saved.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
The monument that remembers the children murdered in L\u00eddice (Photo: Pam\u00e1tn\u00edk Lidice<\/a>).<\/div>\n

Le\u017e\u00e1ky was a small village<\/strong> consisting of eight houses and a factory. Its population was smaller than that of L\u00eddice but it had an equally terrible fate. A total of 33 people between the ages of 14 and 84 (men and women) were shot, and 11 of the 13 children were killed in a gas chamber<\/strong> at the Che\u0142mno extermination camp in Poland occupied by Germany. Of all the inhabitants of Le\u017e\u00e1ky, only two girls survived<\/strong>, Jarmila and Marie \u0160\u0165ul\u00edk, who the Nazis considered could be \"Germanized\".<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Stone tombstones with Latin crosses in the places where the houses in Le\u017e\u00e1ky were razed by the Nazis (Photo: Pam\u00e1tn\u00edk Le\u017e\u00e1ky<\/a>).<\/div>\n

After killing or deporting the population of both towns, the Germans razed Lidice and Le\u017e\u00e1ky and then removed the rubble<\/strong>, leaving the landscape as if no one had ever been there. The cruelty of this repression shocked the world and in solidarity with the victims, towns and places named after L\u00eddice were founded<\/a> in Brazil, Mexico, Ecuador, Panama, Israel, Venezuela, Peru, the United States, Uruguay and Cuba. The case of Le\u017e\u00e1ky is less well known<\/strong>, and I am not aware that there are towns with that name in other countries.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
A monument that remembers a part of the residents of L\u00eddice murdered by the Germans. The text in Czech says: \"A\u010d mrtv\u00ed, st\u00e1le bojuj\u00ed - v t\u011bchto m\u00edstech bylo zavra\u017ed\u011bno 173 lidick\u00fdch hrdin\u016f\". Its translation into English is as follows: \"Although dead, they continue to fight: 173 L\u00eddice heroes were killed in these places\" (Photo: Pam\u00e1tn\u00edk Lidice<\/a>).<\/div>\n

L\u00eddice was rebuilt after World War II<\/strong>, in a place very close to where the original town was located. Today it has 555 inhabitants. Le\u017e\u00e1ky was not rebuilt.<\/strong> In both cases, the places occupied by the original towns destroyed by the Nazis are considered sacred grounds in the Czech Republic, and the monuments that you can see in this post were built on them.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
The monument to the murdered children in L\u00eddice. People place teddy bears, flowers and candles next to the monument in memory of them (Photo: Pam\u00e1tn\u00edk Lidice<\/a>).<\/div>\n

There is a particularly moving monument in L\u00eddice:<\/strong> the one that commemorates the 88 children murdered in that town. The monument is the work of the sculptor Marie Uchytilov\u00e1, who began working on it in 1980. It is made of bronze and was inaugurated in 2000.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
The tombstone with the names of the Le\u017e\u00e1ky residents killed in the 1942 massacre (Photo: Pam\u00e1tn\u00edk Le\u017e\u00e1ky<\/a>).<\/div>\n

In Le\u017e\u00e1ky there are stone tombstones with Latin crosses in the places occupied by each house razed by the Germans.<\/strong> There is also a large stone tombstone on which all the men of the victims of that massacre are written.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
The monument in memory of the residents of L\u00eddice murdered by the Nazis. It is in the location of the town that was razed in 1942 (Photo: Pam\u00e1tn\u00edk Lidice<\/a>).<\/div>\n

I dedicate this entry to the residents of L\u00eddice and Le\u017e\u00e1ky who were murdered in those massacres.<\/strong> We have a moral duty to remember them and never forget what happened, so that history never repeats itself and that criminal totalitarianism never rise from its ashes.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Each of the Le\u017e\u00e1ky stone tablets indicates the names of the people who lived in the corresponding house and who were killed in the 1942 massacre (Photo: Pam\u00e1tn\u00edk Le\u017e\u00e1ky<\/a>).<\/div>\n

---<\/p>\n

Main photo: Pam\u00e1tn\u00edk Lidice<\/a>.<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On June 4, 1942, members of the Czechoslovak resistance assassinated an important Nazi leader in Prague: Reinhard Heydrich.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[19536,16887],"tags":[10737,11974,18893,18894,10872,18795,11950,10389],"class_list":["post-51053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-we-said-yesterday","category-monuments","tag-czech-republic","tag-czechoslovakia","tag-lidice","tag-lezaky","tag-national-socialism","tag-reinhard-heydrich","tag-third-reich","tag-world-war-ii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51053"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}