LIDICE 1945 - an early and rare essay about the massacre of the village of Lidice in Czechoslovakia, which was completely destroyed by the Nazis in 1942, as a showy collective punishment for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. Accompanied by rare photographs of the destruction left by the Nazis in the village, and photographs of the massacres of the villagers. Copy with dedication and signature of author Cyril Meibout. Meibout revealing at an early stage unknown details about the massacre. Published by MINISTERSIVO INFORMACI.
Heydrich, head of the Reich Ministry of Defense (RSHA), was nicknamed the "Bohemian Defender" for his part in the German takeover and German annexation of the Czech region of Bohemia in 1939. On May 29, 1942, Czech underground fighters Josef Gabczyk and Jan Kubish ambushed the car of Heydrich in the Holszowice region, while on his way to Prague, the Czech capital. They threw a hand grenade at Heydrich's car and seriously injured him. A few days later, on June 4, 1942, he died of an infection in his wounds. Following the assassination, Kurt Deliga, who was appointed Heydrich's successor as "deputy protector", ordered a punitive action against the villagers - its demolition and execution. On June 10, 1942, ten trucks with German soldiers arrived in the village, which was known for its residents' opposition to the Nazi occupation and was suspected of being a hiding place for local partisans. The soldiers surrounded the village and imposed a complete closure on it. They then led all the men (over the age of 15), 173 in number (and another 11 in the following days), behind a barn and shot them in groups of ten at a time. The women, 190 in number, were sent to the Ravensbruck concentration and extermination camp. Some were killed by gas and some perished due to the harsh conditions of the camp. Only a few survived. 82 of the children of Lidic were sent to the Chelmno extermination camp where they were murdered by gas. A number of other children who were found to be "ethnically appropriate" were sent to a race improvement program (Lebensborn), designed to educate them according to the principles of race theory so that they could function as Aryans. After the village was emptied of people, all its houses were blown up, and its land was leveled and sown. The name of the village has been erased from all German maps.
In this publication, which is one of the earliest Documentation of the terrible massacre, the author details the story of the massacre in a personal tone, emphasizing details unknown until then, how the Germans destroyed the village buildings, the Germans' use of dogs to kill, hard evidence that was not Known for killing the villagers with axes, not only with guns, looting by the Germans in the village, especially among the women in plundering their jewelry, reporting on German weapons found in the village after the massacre, signs of abuse of the deceased before being slaughtered, and more. The author also goes on to refute the claim that the inhabitants of the village of Lidice assisted the Nazis in informing about hiding and the massacre itself, proving that the village of Lidic was one of the biggest opponents of Nazism, as well as the false numbers written by the Germans, and more. On the last page is a detailed list of the names of those killed in Lidice.
28, [4] p. 21 cm. Very good condition.
