1942: Lidice

The name of this small town in Czechoslovakia acquired a worldwide fame in 1942. As a part of the unprecedented wave of German terror in Czechoslovakia which followed upon the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich (see CZECHOSLOVAKIA), the Germans announced officially to the whole world, over the German radio on June 10, that the township of Lidice near the Czech mining town of Kladno had been 'exterminated,' because of the suspicion that some of its citizens had sheltered the patriots who had attempted the assassination. The official German announcement went on: 'After ascertaining these facts, all male adults of the town were shot, while the women were placed in a concentration camp, and children were entrusted to appropriate educational institutions. The township was leveled to the ground and the name of the community extinguished.' Thus the name of Lidice itself was to be blotted out of history. This mass murder, proudly proclaimed by the Germans, aroused a world-wide indignation. The Czech people will not be alone in never forgetting the name of Lidice; it is also to be preserved in America; and the town itself will be rebuilt in Czechoslovakia after the country has been freed from German barbarism.

On July 12, 1942, a new housing project near Joliet, Illinois, adopted the name of Lidice. A memorial shaft in which an eternal light will burn in memory of the martyrs of Lidice was consecrated by the Most Rev. Abbot Prokop Neuzhil. The inscription reads: 'In memory of the people of Lidice, Czechoslovakia, destroyed by barbarism but living forever in the hearts of all who love freedom, this monument is erected by the free people of America at Lidice, Illinois.'

In his message on the occasion, Jan Masaryk, the foreign minister of Czechoslovakia, pointed out that in remembering Lidice we must think also of Chinese, Polish, Yugoslav, and many other villages which have suffered a similar fate. In fact, on June 25, a second smaller Czech village, named Lezhaky, in eastern Bohemia, was razed to the ground. This time not only all the men but also the women were slain by the Germans, and the orphaned children were taken away to various correctional institutions.

Outside the United States the memory of Lidice has also been commemorated in Mexico, in the former town of San Geronimo, a few minutes' drive from Mexico City. The ceremony of changing the name was held at the site of the Mexican army's war college and broadcast to all Latin American countries.