The two volunteers required to do the job were selected from the Free Czech Forces training in Scotland. The men had formed a close friendship and they volunteered together. Both were former non-commissioned officers in the Czech Army who had fled to France following the imposition of the Munich Agreement.
Author: Alan Gerrard
Hey, thanks for stopping by at the Visiting the Czech Republic website!! I have co-operated on bilateral projects with friends and colleagues in Prague and the villages of Lidice and Buštěhrad, and the wider Czech Republic since 1992 in the name of cultural awareness and understanding. Now I want to share my knowledge with you. Recently, I published the book The Path to Lidice, the respective stories of the Lidice Shall Live and Lidice Lives campaigns. I hope you enjoy the website and find plenty of useful information to enhance your experience in one of the most culturally enriching nations you could ever wish to visit!
Lidice – 40th Anniversary of the Powerful Book by Ivan Cigánek – Orbis 1982
“The noose around Lidice, formed by a company of the Nazi Schutzpolizei was being tightened slowly but surely. Their commander, Major Marwelder, had been ordered to have his men posted so as to seal off Lidice hermetically by 10 p.m. Anyone wishing to enter Lidice was free to do so but nobody was to be…
Lord Mayor Creates Nottingham Lidice Shall Live Committee – 1943
A certified locomotive driver and a gifted poet, Colonel David Bourner was a prominent local figure around Nottingham. It was his keen interest in the welfare of the Czechoslovak state and its people, which prompted him to become Chairman of the Nottingham “Lidice Shall Live” committee.
Wendell Willkie – Renaming Stern Park Gardens-Lidice – July 1942
“They came in the night, men in boots and brown shirts, and they took from their homes the bewildered miners and farmers, the tailor and the priest, the boy of 17 and the old man of 70, more than 200 in all, and they shot them, because they could think of no other way to…
Václav Nosek 1882-1955, Good Communist, Creator of the Socialist Village
Nosek, the prime mover behind the construction of a new Lidice, was also a principal agitator at a community level and within industry, ruthless in the pursuit of the Communists’ manifesto and willing to implement totalitarian methods.
The Key to Lidice – A Celebration of Friendship Between Nations – 2017
On Saturday, May 27th, 2017, the Mayor of Lidice, Veronika Kellerová, presented three keys in a special ceremony: one to Czech President Miloš Zeman, the second to Jan Thompson, British Ambassador to Czechia, and a third to US Charge D’affaires, Kelly Adams-Smith.
Arthur Baddeley – North Staffordshire Miners’ Federation – Unsung Hero 1942
Arthur Baddeley is closely linked to the Lidice Shall Live campaign, having been President of the Federation at the movement’s inception. Of the Lidice atrocity, he said, “Though it has been totally destroyed, and our brother miners have been murdered, and the women and children battered and brutally treated by the Nazis, we say this village shall be remodelled and rebuilt, and the people shall rise and live again in a new spirit of fellowship and brotherhood.
Lidice Shall Live: A Story of the Victory of Good Over Evil That Has to be Told – 2010
The intention of Hitler to blast the name of Lidice from the face of the earth was a conscious failure. News of the crime shocked the world, particularly in Britain, from where the assassins of Reinhard Heydrich had originally set out. The mining village of Stoke-on-Trent in the English Midlands began the British Lidice Shall Live committee and implemented plans to rebuild the village as a model mining community.
Munich Agreement: Czech Dismemberment Brings Dishonourable Peace – 1938
Late in the evening, Germany, France, and Great Britain came to an agreement to hand over the Sudetenland to the Third Reich. The Czechs were not consulted. They were free to resist themselves if they wished.
Demands on Czechoslovakia: Hitler and His Puppet Make Life Difficult – 1938
Neville Chamberlain, acting entirely on his own initiative, decided to intervene. He flew out to meet Hitler face-to-face in order to save the peace.