Prime Minister: The Lidice tragedy stands testament to a monstrous ideology

In his speech, the Czech Prime Minister stressed the importance of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. “On the one hand, the assassination of Deputy Reich Protector Heydrich by Czech patriots, coming as it did at a time when the Nazi machine was at the absolute pinnacle of its expansive power, once and for all demolished the myth of its invincibility and became a symbol of armed resistance as the only possible response to the occupation,” he said during the ceremony.

In this context, the massacre at Lidice in 1942 took on international significance because the atrocity of the act, according to the Prime Minister, laid bare the monstrosity of Nazi ideology to other nations. “On the other hand, the immense tragedy of Lidice was and remains for us a symbol of the true nature of that perverse ideology, evidence that reconciliation with this criminal regime was out of the question,” he stated.

We are all survivors of Lidice’s victims, said the Prime Minister. Nečas noted that the extermination of Lidice was a turning point in the struggle for Europe and that the impact it made should remain a constant and meaningful legacy of our history. “The memory of our martyrs time and again restores the validity of Czech patriotism,” he said in his speech.

“In this regard, I value the words of the German President, Joachim Gauck, expressing grief and shame at the razing of Lidice and Ležáky and acknowledging the historical responsibility of the Germans,” added the Prime Minister.

On 10 June, it was exactly 70 years since the 1942 extermination of Lidice, in the Kladno area of Bohemia, by the Nazis. Under the false pretext that some of the village’s inhabitants had aided the assassination of the Deputy Reich Protector, Reinhard Heydrich, the people of Lidice were murdered or transported to concentration camps, and the village itself was razed to the ground. Soon after, the governments of Great Britain and France declared the Munich Agreement void.