A Mournful Anniversary...
In 1942, Reinhard Heydrich was the Reichsprotektor of the Nazi German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. This area of the former Czechoslovakia had been ruthlessly and illegally occupied by Germany since 1939.
On the morning of Wednesday May 27, 1942, he was being driven from his country villa at Panenske Brezany to his office at the Hradcany Castle in Prague. When he reached the Holešovice area of Prague, his car was attacked by two Czechoslovak resistance fighters, Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš.
These men, who had been trained in Britain, had parachuted into Czechoslovakia in December, 1941, as part of Operation Anthropoid. After Gabcik's sten gun failed, Kubis threw a bomb at the Heydrich's car. Heydrich was fatally injured by the explosion.
Both the parachutists managed to escape the scene of the assassination and hide in places that had been prepared in advance. On June 4, 1942, after lingering for days, Heydrich died in Bulovka hospital in Prague from blood poisoning caused by pieces of upholstery entering his body when the bomb thrown at his car exploded.
Hitler, the Führer of the German Reich, was shocked by the assassination and enraged, ordered Kurt Daluege, Heydrich's replacement, to wade through blood to find Heydrich's killers. The Germans began a massive and bloody unprecedented retaliation campaign targeted against the entire Czech population.
The mourning speeches over Heydrich's coffin were not over in Berlin when on June 9, 1942 the decision was made to "make up for his death" by a bloody end to Lidice.
more...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidice
Tomorrow is a mournful anniversary. It is the anniversary of the destruction of the Czechoslovakian town of Lidice by Adolf Hitler. I am half Czechoslovakian, so this is something that means something to me. Please, look at the pictures above the Lidice Rose, and keep them in your thoughts that it may never happen again.
posted by VerityINK at 7:33 PM
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7 Comments:
Oh boy, YOFI
So much pain and sorrow.
I add my tear to the tear lake of Lidice.
batya
Thank you, Batya-you're always here for me!
Dear Batya, as always you offer such comforting and kind words. Lidice was another of the world's great saddnesses. It's town and it's people must be remembered.
And you call me a historian! Great stroy Donal. Lidice was one of a number of small towns the Germans liquidated in WW2. There were others, Oradur-sur-Glane in France was destroyed by the 2nd.SS Panzer Div. on 6/10/44 for the trumped -up ''crime'' of supporting partisans(which was unture). Some 600 men,women and children were hearded into the village church, which was locked and then set on fire.This was a tactic unique to the SS. SS men stationed themselves out side the church and shot those who tried to escape. By some miracle, an old woman and a child survived. Oradur remains today,just as it was on that day in June 1944. It is a living monument to Nazi brutality. Only the advancing Allied troops prevented them from completly destroying the town. There were other places the Germans did this, Stavelot in Belgium,during the Battle of the Bulge the SS shot and killed over 200 civilans for reasons that remain unclear other than Hitler had instructed his troops to advance using a ''wave of terror'' Another Belgian town called Bandes the SS again shot all the male inhabitants, locked the women and children in the church and set it on fire. The list is long on German atrocities in WW2,it isn't for nothing that as the noose was put around his neck at Nuremburg, Hans Frank, Hitlers personal lawyer and Reich "Protector'' of Poland said ''A thousand years shall pass and the guilt of Germany will never be erased'' Its important that this history isn't ever forgotten. This article, I hope will ensure that it isn't. Bravo Donal and bless you for writting this. (that why I love ya:-) J'Mac.
Wow, J'Mac! you really know your stuff! Thank you for adding to this memorial with your great store of knowledge--I didn't know there were so many 'Lidices'... thanks for filling in the gaps.
Where satan has a foothold you will find; death, destruction, atrocities, torture, hopelessness.
An appalling memorial to the power of evil.
Praise G*D, righteousness and mercy and love bring light and life! It is stronger!
Good morning, G*D bless and Maranatha!
tmw
Thank you, TMW--I knew I could count on your mention...
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