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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 10, No. 7. June 11, 1947

Visit to Lidice

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Visit to Lidice

Logo of the World Federation of Democratic Youth

The following is an account of a visit to Lidice by Mr. H. C. Williams, one of the Secretaries of the World Federation of Democratic Youth.

All that is left of what was Lidice is a stone here and there overgrown by grass. And yet standing on the spot where Lidice once was, on a bitter winter day, with snow falling, one small incident brought home simply and clearly again the monstrous stupidity of Fascism, for about 200 yards away a puffing tractor drawing a plough was turnins up the soil of what once had been a farm, and was now becoming a farm again, in spite of the Nazis. Perhaps more deeply moved than any of us was the American girl from Chicago, Illinois, Mollie Lieber, for it was in Illinois that a little village was re-christened "Lidice."

Not only did the Nazis destroy the village by dynamiting the houses and carrying away the remains, they also changed entirely the course of the little stream which ran through the village, so that the spot where Lidice had stood would be unrecognisable. They changed the course of the stream—and the stream of the heroism of Lidice courses through the veins of the new Czechoslovak Republic—while those who destroyed Lidice are paying for it at Nuremberg. The Nazis made a complete film of the destruction of Lidice, and this film was shown as evidence against them at Nuremberg.

A low fence surrounds the spot where the men of Lidice lie buried. This spot was still strewn with wreaths and flowers while we were there—young people from Britain, the United States, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, and Australia. A monument stands at the head of the fenced off plot. This is the inscription, in Czech and Russian:—

"To the Lidice citizens, to the martyrs of the German fascist occupants, from the Red Army men, sergeants and officers of the Unit of Hero of the Soviet Union, Colonel Parkov."

To one side, on the actual spot where the men of Lidice were murdered, is a sample wooden cross with the inscription:

"Here lie the citizens of Lidice, murdered on July 10th, 1942."

Lidice, the town that was murdered, is to be rebuilt on an adjoining site. Many of the women have returned from the concentration camps and forced labour to which they had been sent in Germany. Some of the children have been found, and the only man who escaped from Lidice, the band-master, is at present touring Czechoslovakia with a band. Lidice was a mining town and British miners have pledged themselves to raise £1,000,000 to equip a Mining Research College at Lidice.

I carried a small stone away with me from Lidice, and behind us as we went was the morning song of the tractor, like a song of triumph.