World War II – Lidice Massacre

June 10, 1942

Under orders of Adolf Hitler, the village of Lidice, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (now in the Czech Republic), is destroyed. The massacre was in retaliation for the assassination of Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich in the late spring of 1942. The Nazis executed all 173 men in the village over the age of 15, plus several others who were already under arrest and 11 others who were not in the village at the time were later arrested and executed. Eighty-eight of the 105 children were sent to concentration camps where they died. Seven children who were considered racially suitable for Germanisation were handed over to SS families. Sixty of the 184 women sent to concentration camps died there. All the animals in the village were also slaughtered. The village was then burned and the buildings destroyed with explosives.