Terezin and Lidice

As a requirement for Jewish Religious Thought class, I spend today at the Jewish ghetto of Terezin and the sight of the town of Lidice. I can't say it was a particularly "fun" day as we focused on the horrors committed against humans by other "humans" but it was extremely interesting and, I think, an experience well worth having. So, with a few accompanying photos, I'll give you an overview of each.

Terezin was the first Jewish ghetto established by Hitler. This place was to be the place where they SS would murder any remaining Jews at the end of Germany's "final solution" to the Jewish problem. It's about an hour outside of Prague and received many ethnic Jews (many of whom were actually practicing Christians) when Czechoslovakia was taken by the Germans. It remained throughout the war a small town overcrowded with the persecuted Jews contained within a huge fortress system. Thousands died here (over 100 died everyday) and even more were sent to Auschwitz from this ghetto. Every child, once they reached the age of 14, was immediately deported for "processing". That is, they were murdered upon reaching such an age. The stories of the people that lived here are amazing, however. The 11-13 year olds created and maintained a legitimate, underground newspaper for the 150,000 people living within the maybe 2 square mile settlement. Multiple other adults created operas, plays, and paintings as forms of "spiritual resisistance". Children were separated from their parents upon arrival. However, once a month a play was organized by the Jewish community in which the children acted so their parents could catch a glimpse of the children. Each part, however, was rehearsed by 5 different children in hopes that by the time of performance, at least one of them would still be alive to play the roleon stage. The stories we heard and the things we saw at Terezin were both horrific and awe inspiring. The whole experience was bittersweet.A giant menorah amidst mass grave sites at Terezin. There were too many deaths per day to bury individually. Eventually, however, all bodies began to be burned instead of buried.

Many of those who died at Terezin were Christians of Jewish descent. These are graves outside the fortresses that surrounded the ghetto.

Lidice, our other site visited today, had no positive side to its story. Lidice was a village of approximately 500 outside of Prague with nothing particularly special about it. It was simply unfortunately connected, randomly, to the assassination of Richard Heidrich. Heidrich, known as the "Butcher of Prague" was the political and military arm of Hitler's Reich within Czechoslovakia. That being true, Benes' exile government had him assassinated by flying in a few paratroopers. These paratroopers subsequently committed suicide to evade capture only to have their bodies mutilated afterward. Apparently, this was not enough of a punishment according to Hitler so his people found a village, Lidice, where there were known to be some relatives of a couple of the paratroopers. So without warning, Hitler's men ride out to Lidice and round up the entire population. They kill every man over the age of 14 in the center of the town, send all the women to their death or a concentration camp, and then divide the children. A few lucky children look arian enough that they are sent to Germany to be adopted by German families. 90 other children are sent to work in a factory for 3 weeks. Afterward, these children are gassed in the back of a truck by the Nazis. After this annihilation, every single building in the village is bombed and then demolished. Every grave and gravestone is removed along with every bit of rubble. Within two days, there is absolutely nothing left of this village. Not even a brick. All to send a message to the Czech people that Hitler would not be resisted.

The place where Lidice used to be. The sidewalk and the statue in the distance were added as part of the memorial. Nothing was actually left aside from the Corpus Christi of a crucifix from the village church.

Memorial to the 90 children killed from Lidice. These are true to size statues that supposedly look exactly like each of those children. Their expressions are what is imagined they would be perchance they had survived and allowed to return to Lidice. Toys are routinely brought to the memorial by visitors.