A Little Village Called Lidice

Zdena Trinka

• Editorial: Eumenes Publishing
• Año: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781839741074
• Categoría: History
• Categoría: Jewish History

A Little Village Called Lidice, first published in 1947, is an impassioned account of the World War II atrocity committed by the Nazis in Lidice, Czechoslovakia. The reprisal was ordered by Hitler following the assassination of Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich on May 27, 1942 outside of Prague. On June 9, 1942, Gestapo and other German forces entered the small village of Lidice (chosen apparently at random by the Nazis), rounded up all men and male teenagers 15 and over, and executed them by firing squad (173 in all). Their bodies were placed in a common grave. Some women were also executed, with most transported to concentration camps. A handful of the approximately 100 village children were removed from their mothers to be raised by German families, but over 80 were sent to their death in the extermination camp at Chelmo, where they were placed in sealed trucks and gassed. Following the executions, the village was razed by fire, leveled by explosives, then bulldozed into rubble. The village's famous cherry orchards were also uprooted and destroyed, a small lake was filled-in, and a stream diverted. Grass was planted so that the village was, in effect, obliterated. At war's end, only a few women and 17 Lidice children survived to return to the village. Following the war, houses for a new Lidice were built near the site of the original village, and a memorial erected in honor of those who were killed.Author Zdena Trinka (1892-1967) was a native of North Dakota who wrote a number of additional books, mostly concerning the history of North Dakota. She escaped the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia while on a visit.

IV. THIS WAS LIDICE

Her feet carrying her through the sloping wheat fields entered a valley, and Marie suddenly stopped short — her breath all but ceasing as she stood on the scattered stones of where once had stood a church.

God, there was nothing...nothing left but stone rubble! Just stretches of field of growing wheat shot through with blood-red poppies...and a flock of sheep herded by a shepherd and his dog, grazing on the main street of what had once been a village. And a posted sign with the legend: “Here once stood the village of Lidice...”

“Lidice!...Muj Boze!” escaped her lips.

She had to take good hold of herself or she would have fallen, as she neared a be-flowered, roped-off patch of ground in the middle of a cornfield, with a raised cross which read: “Here lie the bodies of the inhabitants of Lidice, murdered by the German invaders on June 10, 1942.” The shrine was flanked by Czech and Russian flags. The presence of Russian Army tanks, some distance away, conveyed the story of who had set up the shrine. [Erected by the Russian 5th Army Division.]

Her knees bent under her and she slid to the ground, her hands gently touching, stroking it — as if it were a living face. Somewhat later her lips began to move in silent prayer. And then suddenly she was seeing not the stubble, the desolation, but the village as she knew it. She was hearing voices — especially one that had always set her heart to music.

“Some day we will have a field like that — and we will have children — a son and a daughter — with a soft voice like yours. We will have other children. But why want it — when I am rich in having you.”

It was her Josef speaking. Her tall handsome Josef.

They were walking hand in hand down the fragrant walnut lane from Bustehrad. The road with its stately walnut trees which all but emptied itself into the village square, and then continued down the long, narrow Wilson main street, named after an American President who had dreamed a dream right out of Czech hearts — a dream in which all men, all nations, large or small, should be free. Free to live in human dignity.

Freedom was such a beautiful word in the Czech language. Generations of Czechs had died for it down the ages. They could not live without it, without the hope of it. It meant more than life and bread itself. That is what the Germans, used to regimentation all their lives, could not understand. “The German,” her lips moved slowly, “he can live without a soul, but not the Czech. Freedom and education are a fetish with us Czechs.”

She could see Schoolmaster Ottomansky telling his pupils to get knowledge, to try to supplement the village school with a course at the Science School at Kladno, or attend the University at Prague if they could. His own daughter, a brilliant student, was even then attending the Karlova University in Prague. “Every person’s value,” he would tell them, “is equal to the amount he knows. Knowledge is power.” And he would stress upon his pupils that they could adopt no better philosophy for life than Thomas Garrigue Masaryk’s “Message to Youth” which he loved to quote to them; his rich voice inflaming them with its words:

“Be eager for knowledge, but not impatient. Education is a slow, self-directed process. Listen first to the opinion of the more experienced, and then, formulate your own judgment. Before you reject the old, be certain you have a substitute which is better. Above all else, live simply, wisely; do not waste your powers. Life is a gift to be used with discretion.”

“Life is a gift to be used with discretion...” he would repeat for their benefit. And he would invariably conclude with: “We should consider ourselves lucky, children, to have had such a president as Masaryk. If any of you happen to be seeking a national hero, whose example could serve as an inspiration for you, you do not have to go far away. You will find one of the noblest examples, right here at home.”

Schoolmaster and school worked together in a very friendly relationship. He thought it more important to hold the love and confidence of the children than to instill fear and to enforce discipline. He tried to achieve justice rather than to practice severity — and his reward was in the good results his pupils attained, and which proved that his work had not been in vain.

And the children loved him, considered him their friend. It was not uncommon to see him of evenings in front of the trafika opposite the schoolhouse, the center of a bevy of village youth noisily debating something. Usually after they had lost a game of football or volley ball to an opposing team.

“Yes, but listen, listen, boys —“ At the sound of his voice the noisy ones silenced. “You can’t expect to win all the time. The others have to win some time. It is just as great a victory to be a good loser. Yes, sometimes even greater. It takes a real man to take defeat with good grace.”

But usually the boys won over the stronger Kladno team. Once even from the great team of Praha. And was that an occasion of some rejoicing as they stood in front of the trafika — which answered as a newspaper stand and where mail was to be had, with a sideline sale of bonbons, cigars and tobacco and other miscellany — the following evening and recounted for the benefit of the schoolmaster their great feat!

The trafika was a favorite place where everything from war and world news to minor village affairs was discussed. Here the boys planned their secret excursions and forages in ripening time into the walnut lane and cherry and community orchards. Here they organized war expeditions against the boys of the neighboring villages of Hrebec and Makotrasy, which were fought out on the meadows and had their finale at home, when victors or losers returned with battered noses and torn pants.

“I don’t know what to do with that boy of mine,” motherly Mrs. Cerny once said on a note of despair. “I paddle him, I scold him, I mend him, and when I begin to think I have reformed him — he comes back to me like this. Look at him — his nose scratched and his sleeve almost ripped off.” And she held up a coat. “Fighting again.”

“Maminka,” her son grinned, “would have me stand still when the boys of Makotrasy or Hrebec are chasing us or itching for a fight. She ought to see shiners and battered noses some of those boys carry home.”

“But it isn’t nice to fight,” maintained Mrs. Cerny. “I don’t know what the youth of today is coming to. I don’t know who you take after. In my youth boys were mannerly. Your father was never like that.”

“Remember the story tatinek tells of how he was sampling and picking those juicy yellow damson plums in the overlord’s garden, and enjoying himself, when he heard the whistle of the overseer; and there was Father with the plum still in his mouth, making a dash for it, with the overseer after him; and it was only Father’s fast feet that saved the day for him,” said her son impishly. “And the time the boys of his village made a forage on the manor pear orchard, and he was sitting way at the top of the tree shaking down the pears to the boys below — when the watchman came, and the boys made a run for it, and there was Father in the tree and the watchman below ——”

In times of truce, the boys of Lidice shared with the boys of Makotrasy the high privilege of ringing the bells from the massive tower of St. Martin’s. Twice each day, at noon and again in the evening, the tall figure of Sexton Suchy, still hale and hearty in his sixties, could be seen letting the boys in through the partly opened side door, as if they were bent on some stealthy mission, and with a twinkle in his eye would stand by while the zealous ones climbed into the tower to outdo themselves as bell ringers.

This zeal of the boys for ringing the bells of St. Martin’s seemed to be inherited by generation after generation, and was considered a high honor. Sometimes funny things happened. Like the time the village was expecting the vicar. That was in Father Novak’s time. Though years had passed, and the boys had grown up, it still remained the village joke. In view of the expected visit of the vicar, Father Novak had instructed his altar boys — one of them, Lada Kiml, now living in a place called Cleveland in America — to be on a rigid lookout, and the moment they spied the vicar’s carriage, to start the bells ringing in a joyous welcome.

The boys were letter perfect. A carriage was approaching. The boys started the bells and rang with a zeal that bid fair to tear the bells from their mooring to give the vicar a rousing welcome. Unfortunately, in the carriage was an agent selling chicory and coffee — who was in amazement at the sudden ringing of the bells on his entry. Later when the carriage with the vicar did arrive, no one was on hand to ring the bells. The boys were gone. It was the first time that the kindly priest gave the boys a tongue lashing, telling them they should first look who’s inside the carriage before they start tearing at the bells.

For many years now it had been Father Stemberk in charge of St. Martin’s. Beside Sexton Suchy to help him run church matters, there was the elderly gravedigger, a gaunt figure, the way gravediggers should look, possessed of a somewhat nervous temperament in his advancing years.

But Father Stemberk was as unique as he was beloved. Like a comet, his spare, medium-height figure, with the priestly hat that hid the ever-widening bald spot fringed by gray hair, seemed to be everywhere. He was as familiar a figure to the people of Makotrasy and Hrebec whom he had taken under his wing, as to the people of his own parish. There was scarce a household in all that span of territory but that some member was the beneficiary of his services at a christening, or a wedding, or in receiving the last sacrament.

Father Stemberk believed in advancement. His purchase of a car, in 1931, was along this line. The sight of Father Stemberk at the wheel of his little Tatra [a Czech “Ford”], whiz-zing it through the village was a familiar one. But of late he had been forced to give up driving the car. With advancing age he began to feel twinges of rheumatism — though he would not admit it. Havarii was the name he coined for his misery. To all inquiries about his health, he would say with a twinkle in his eye:

“As long as the head is in good condition, there is nothing to worry about — thank the Lord.”

Father Stemberk was one who was vitally concerned about his country. As the tension grew in 1988, he was a familiar figure among the group of men gathered every evening at the inn to scan the latest papers to learn “what those at Praha were doing about this freedom of ours.” Hitler and Chamberlain, he held, “were birds of a feather, working into each other’s hands. All that flying back and forth from London to Godesberg and Berchtesgaden — with never once stopping at Prague to consult the Czech Government, although it was on the way — boded no good,” he said. “Besides, London knew that ‘Sudetenland’ was but a newly-coined word, that the land had never at any time in history belonged to the Reich, that the German immigrants who had moved in had no more right to want it annexed to Germany, than if they had immigrated to London and wanted London annexed to the Reich. But why wasn’t the man with the flying umbrella telling the world that — instead of beclouding the issue with his senseless flying? As senseless as that of forcing Runciman upon the nation — after the Czech Government had refused Chamberlain’s offer to send him into the country as ‘mediator.’ What right had England to meddle in what was purely a Czech internal affair? And that without even being asked or invited? And in a matter that already was being settled before she stepped in.”

Lidice, like the rest of Czechia, was deeply concerned in the political issues that concerned their country.

And Father Stemberk, God rest his soul, had been so right, so right...in the event of things as they turned out. With Munich went the last of any happiness they were to know. And Lidice had been a village of happy people. The evenings were a symphony in themselves:

People sitting in front of their homes. Everywhere low-toned conversation. The women talking about their children, their household tasks, their gardens, about a new baby that had just ...