At dawn on June the 4th, the day of Reinhard Heydrich’s death, the first search of Lidice took place.
Eyewitness accounts recall the truck full of troops peeling off the main road from Prague to Kladno, racing into the village, ejecting residents from their homes, and immediately lining them up for identification.
There was intimidation, bullying and harassment but generally no one was harmed.
No hard evidence was found to incriminate the villagers so, perhaps out of frustration, some of the contingent plundered, looting and ransacking homes and scattering the residents’ unwanted belongings on the ground.
It became clear to the Gestapo that it was time to become creative, in the light of a lack of prima facie evidence. As for the Horák and Stříbrný families, they were arrested regardless and taken to Kladno for questioning.
