The day started with me deciding between getting to the bus on time, and eating a hearty breakfast. Although I could have, and should have, been able to do both, I figured there was no point. Anyways, remembering that we weren't served lunch until about 3pm, I made myself some eggs and got to the bus as it was pulling away [literally]. We then proceeded to what could have been a really nice suburb. Being only 30 minutes and having lovely rolling hills, Lidice truly could have become a really nice place. That is, until the Germans decided otherwise.
In 1942, Hitler assigned Reinhard Heydrich to be in charge of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (the pre-WW2 and post-WW2 Czechoslovakia which lost Slovakia during the war). Being legitimately extremely pissed off and knowing his plans of travels, Czech fighters trained by the RAF planned a fantastic execution that left one of Hitler's main guys dead on the side of the road. Before the funeral was even over, Hitler decided to use Lidice as an example to all.
Nazi troops put 4 bullets in every male over 15 and put every woman on a truck to a concentration camp. They then relocated Aryan looking children, sent others to camps, and gased the rest.
[The children's memorial - a statue of the 82 children ranging from 0-15 years old who died - took over 20 years to build.]Once everyone was gone, German soldiers burned the town, uprooted the dead, and cut down the trees to make sure nothing was left. They then bombed the whole place in case they had missed anything.
[The only remnants of Lidice. The spot where the church was has been planted over with grass, but this wall survived in a nearby building.]Did I mention Lidice had absolutely nothing to do with Heydrich's assassination?
[The traditional welcome to a camp, 'Work makes you free,' greets those entering Terezin too.]After 2 hours of silent introspective walking, we left the village and headed farther north to Terezin. Being such a good fortress for the Habsburg Monarchy since 1780, the Germans realized that anything that keeps people out will surely keep them in too. Thus Terezin became the concentration camp that all know it as. Pictures may be worth a thousand words, but a thousand pictures would still do no justice in description. The worst part, however, about Terezin is that this was considered the country club camp by the Nazis. In case this doesn't make sense, I will try to further explain.
[Windowed single cell (most didn't have windows or such high ceilings) for non-Jewish political prisoners. Jews were for the most part in group cells, and some political Jewish prisoners had much smaller cells]Before all Jews were forced into all camps, Jews were 'recruited' into camps so that the Germans could say they were going of their own will. Even though the Jews had no choice, the Nazis still tried enticing them in. Thus propoganda films were produced showing the decency of the relocation camps, and the opportunities of Jewish solidarity that were not offered in the rest of society. Terezin was used as this example, and the propoganda video that survived is absolutely disgusting and 99.99% inaccurate. That .01% is the fact that it was actually shot on location using Jews [you can tell by the forced facial expressions], even if they were fed extra food for the shot and the place was more than just tidied up. Knowing that this was considered the nicest camp in German eyes makes the whole plan even more disgusting, more detestable, and more dispicable.
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