Historical Background

In 1942, Nazi Germany destroyed an innocent Czech village—Lidice—to avenge the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. A mastermind of Nazi genocide,Heydrich was the highest ranking Nazi successfully attacked during the war. All 192 men of the town were murdered, all women sent to Ravensbr¸ck concentration camp, 16 children survived, 82 were gassed. German soldiers blew up all the buildings and altered the flow of a river so that the landscape would never look the same. Lidice became a symbol of Nazi barbarism.