Lidice Shall Live - Part One: The Path to Lidice, #2

By Alan Gerrard

The Path to Lidice is a series of ebooks that look into the relationships between Czechoslovakia, Great Britain, and the USA from the mid-1930s to the late 1960s. Roughly, this equates to the accession to supreme power in Germany of Adolf Hitler and ends with the fall of Alexander Dubček, the liberalizing President of Czechoslovakia in 1969.

 

The series examines international efforts to build a new Lidice from two main perspectives: the US-inspired Lidice Lives campaign, and its UK counterpart, the Lidice Shall Live movement. 

 

Often overlooked by historians, both are sometimes treated as a distant by-product of Operation Anthropoid - the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. Save the general references, such as "Lidice was rebuilt with the help of British miners..." there has been a dearth of satisfactory material dealing with how the village of Lidice came to be rebuilt, following its destruction at the hands of the Nazis, amongst our bookshelves and in the download sections of libraries.

 

2022 marks the 80th Anniversary of both the Lidice Shall Live campaign and the Lidice Lives movement; so we thought we would lay things out for readers keen to acquire further insight into this unique facet of 1940s wartime, social history.  

 

The story starts in Munich and the signing of the agreement which seals the fate of the Czechoslovak nation. In London Chamberlain returns a hero but the euphoria soon corrodes as it soon transpires that Hitler's demands have not abated. Indeed, Nazi Germany was to occupy the whole of Bohemia and Moravia on the 15th March 1939. 

 

By September 1941 Recihprotektor Von Neurath is deemed to be "too soft" on the Czechs. To his replacement death is vapid and the Czechs are inferior. A more disturbing vision for the future one could not conjure...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alan Gerrard
• Release date: Nov 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201006792

Book preview

Published by Theartbay Gallery

2021

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.

Published on behalf of Lidice Lives:

26 Christchurch Street

Fenton, Stoke-on-Trent

Staffordshire

ST4 3AD

© Alan Gerrard

Artwork – Sid Kirkham

LIDICE SHALL LIVE

NATURAL REACTIONS

TREATIES & NEW HOPE

A WORLD AGAINST OPPRESSION AND TYRANNY

THE NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE MINERS

THE EXECUTIVE

LOCAL CONTEXT & THE SNEYD PIT DISASTER

THE BIRTH OF THE LIDICE SHALL LIVE MOVEMENT

THE FEDERATION BACK DR STROSS

WE SAY THIS VILLAGE SHALL BE RE-MODELLED AND RE-BUILT

THE CZECHO-SLOVAK BRITISH FRIENDSHIP CLUB

A GATHERING STORM AND A FRANK EXCHANGE

LAUNCHING THE MOVEMENT

CLARIFYING THE OBJECTIVES

THE SPIRIT OF 1842

STOKE-ON-TRENT LIVE

A PROMISE AND A THREAT

LIDICE SHALL LIVE

NATURAL REACTIONS

Prague radio broadcast on the evening of Wednesday the 10th June 1942 that

...all men in the village of Lidice, a Czech coal-mining centre, have been shot on suspicion of harbouring the murderers of Heydrich, the women have been deported to a concentration camp and the children sent to educational centres.

Initial reactions upon hearing the horrors which took place there were a mix of despair, anger and bewilderment.

Naturally instant responses involved giving the Nazis a taste of their own medicine. Captain Alan Graham, MP for the Wirral, suggested that at the end of the war the Germans should receive similar treatment to that which they are now meting out to Poles. Graham suggested, to the Prime Minister that in view of the fact that Polish professors from Lvov, arrested in July 1941 had completely disappeared, he should now inform the German Government that, "...after the war all Nazi professors will receive long terms of imprisonment, and compulsory labour service will be introduced for all Germans aged 18 to 60 years."

The Manchester Evening News reported how on Thursday 11th, MP for the Isle of Wight Captain Peter McDonald immediately contacted the Minister of Information, Brendan Bracken, a key member of the War Cabinet, close friend and Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Prime Minister Winston Churchill requesting the British Government,

...publicise the brutality of the Germans in obliterating the Czech village of Lidice and to commemorate for all time the martyrs of that place.

Having brought it up in Parliament on the 16th June, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Information, Mr Ernest Thurtle MP explained to him that the Czechoslovak Government-in-exile were already taking action along the lines of his suggestion, and that the Ministry of Information would give them all possible assistance.

On Wednesday the 17th June, the Czechoslovak Government in London pledged in a resolution broadcast to Czecho-Slovakia through the BBC that those responsible for the crime of Lidice and the 382 Heydrich executions would be brought to justice wherever they fled. The blood shed by them is redding the sunset of their power and the dawn of our victory, added the resolution.

Dr Beneš announced that they would:

...take the necessary steps which it may regard as desirable to secure retribution for these atrocities and will relax no efforts to bring to account all those who committed these crimes or who were in any way responsible for them.

The state of indignation was echoed in the USA and Canada where debates sparked as to the best way of dealing with the Nazis. The Quebec Gazette wrote on the 12th June how the day before Canadian Senators in Ottawa had backed American campaigner and journalist Dorothy Thompson's 'Eye for an Eye' Proposal. In it she wrote:

At present the Nazis feel self-pity is no path to repentance. It is escape from repentance. When every hostage killed brings swift reprisals upon themselves, upon their own villages, the German people, who share the neurosis but in lesser degree than their sicker overlords, will turn their aggression against the Nazis themselves. Until then, the sufferings of other peoples will make not the slightest impression on them.

The suggestion was that Allied air power be used to demolish a German village for each village in occupied Europe demolished by Nazi forces. Senator Adrian Knatchbull-Hugessen drew the Senate's attention to the incoming news, pointing out what an obscene crime it was. He suggested that the plan recommended by Dorothy Thompson should be followed and that a widespread warning be given on radio that a German village in an area to be named was to be destroyed. This village should then be wiped out by air action and the fact again given wide radio publicity with the warning it would be repeated if similar action were again taken by Nazi authorities.

These people are our Allies, Senator Hugessen said of the Czechs. We count on them now and we will count on them more when we invade Europe. They have a right to count on us. Senator James Calder expressed thorough sympathy with the proposal. This horror that is taking place is worse than gas, he said. We don't like the idea of revenge but how is it going to be stopped unless these people are taught a lesson. It will go from bad to worse; it has already.

Back in Britain, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill reacted with fury upon hearing the news. Perhaps he had read Dorothy Thompson's words; perhaps he had received a message from Peter McDonald MP via Brendan Bracken. At some point, probably Thursday 11th or Friday 12th he had spoken with President Eduard Beneš to discuss the Czecho-Slovak situation, along with immediate options - including retaliatory attacks.

At the next secret meeting of the War Cabinet on the 15th June, Churchill was insistent that the Royal Air Force should wipe out three German villages in retaliation for the destruction of Lidice. According to Bomber Command, to do this the attacks would require bright moonlit skies, around 100 bombers, low level flying and the use of 2/3 incendiary bombs to inflict maximum damage.

Looking through the minutes of the meeting, which were kept by Deputy Cabinet Secretary Sir Norman Brook and show that it took place underground in the War Rooms during late afternoon from 5.30pm, we form an extremely vivid account of what went on. Clearly several members were genuinely taken aback at the Prime Minister’s