I knew i could not live in Germany for an entire semester and not have some exposure to WWII tragedies, and on Wednesday the time finally came. Lidice is a short day trip from Prague, so on Wednesday afternoon when she was done teaching, Robyn’s aunt took us.
Lidice was a small town of around 500 people until 1942 when Hitler, pissed off about the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, ordered its destruction. The assassins and approximately 2,000 other Czechs had already been killed, but Hitler’s rage was still not satiated. He had originally wanted 30,000 Czechs killed, but his advisers pointed out that such a mass killing would have a negative impact on the labor force. Lidice was a small out of the way village that had loose connections to the assassination (i think one of the assassins had a second cousin there or something?), so it was here that Hitler decided to enact his revenge. The men and boys over 15 were lined up and shot, while the women and children (except for a few who were considered suitable for Germanisation) were separated and taken to concentration camps. The children were soon gassed. The village was completely destroyed. They burned all the buildings, dug up the orchards, and bulldozed the land effectively wiping Lidice off the map.
There is now a memorial and a park where the town used to be:
The English part of the sign read:
“Separation of men from the families”
“Shot dead men”
“Separation of children”
“Liberation of women from concentration camp”
“Return to mother country”
“Life at peacefule Lidice”
“82 Children of Lidice Gassed by the Nazis in 1942.
In Memory of the milliongs of children who perished in the second world war.”
On a lighter note there were also these weird upside down trees.
After touring the memorial for awhile, we headed back to Prague to wander around a bit before dinner with the family.
This is the sweet astronomical clock! It tells like six different kinds of time and when it goes off on the hour a number of apostles come out depending on what time it is.
Remember the “Hungarian Specialty” from the Bamberg fair? Yeah same stuff only Robyn got her’s with cheese.
I love fish fountains =)
We wanted to go in the Jewish quarter, but unfortunately it was closed when we got there. Back in the 13th century the Jews were all ordered to leave their homes and move to this one section of town. The section was walled off and Jews were restricted in their movements outside of the quarter. Near the end of the 16th century the ghetto became more prosperous and it was also around this time that the Maharal was supposed to create the Golem.
I was particularly interested in the Jewish quarter and the Golem legend because i had recently read He, She, and It for my American literature course (hey i wanted one class i knew i would understand). The class is about cyborgs and this novel had parallel stories: one set in the future about a cyborg named Yod, and the other a story told to Yod by the grandmother about the Golem legend. Before reading this book i had never heard of the Golem legend, so i was pretty psyched to go to Prague and realize it was kind of a big thing. Of course the version i read was not the original, but there were still a lot of similarities and it was interesting to get to see the setting in person.
This is the Synagogue
And this is the super crowded graveyard.
After walking around for a bit, we headed back to the house and Robyn’s family took us out for some amazing Czech food. It was by far the best meal i’ve had since leaving home, and i was so grateful to Robyn and her family for taking me in and showing us such a good time.
Barefoot in the Rain 