Like hundreds of towns and villages during the Second World War, Lidice, a small community in Czechoslovakia, experienced the sheer horror of Nazi terror. All the men were shot, the women sent to concentration camps, and most children murdered as a reprisal for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. The Nazis destroyed every building within sight, and a professional film crew filmed for international release the macabre scenes as they unfolded. Intended as a shock to the confidence of the United Nations and a statement of the invincibility of the Third Reich, the footage served only to strengthen the resolve of the Allies to defeat the Nazis once and for all.
Making full use of the historical and archive sources available, The Path to Lidice creates a sharpened image of the political and social mood in Britain, Czechoslovakia, and America, from the time of the rise of the Sudeten German Party in 1936 to 1968 and the Prague Spring. For years, several significant questions have required more serious examination, such as - Who were the significant characters in the campaigns to rebuild Lidice? How did the movements come about in the first place? How were they managed and coordinated? What kept them alive post-war, when the tides of political expeditiousness had turned? The Path to Lidice provides some answers to these and many other questions at last.
The Lidice atrocity shocked an American society still smarting from the Japanese bombing raid on Pearl Harbour on December 7th, 1941. Thanks to the literary war machine of the Writers’ War Board, headed by Clifton Fadiman and Rex Stout, Lidice became an effective propaganda tool across the Western Hemisphere. Under the stewardship of a “Lidice Lives” committee, fronted by celebrities from the world of film, science, politics, and art, the story of Lidice found a receptive audience amongst millions of Americans, who now found themselves at war with Hitler. A rich source of anti-Nazi sentiment, Lidice reinforced President Roosevelt’s calls for the United States’ full entry into the European war. The movement caught the imagination as it spread throughout the Americas, with the re-naming of communities taking place across North, Latin, and South America, as well as the christenings of girls named Lidice.
News of the crime appalled the people of Britain. There, in the City of Stoke-on-Trent, GP and Councillor, Dr Barnett Stross conceived the Lidice Shall Live movement. The region’s colliers enthused the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain to back their plans to resurrect the Czech village, phoenix-like, into a modern village for miners and their families - a project born of the dream of nationalisation that stirred within hearts and minds.
At the launch of the Lidice Shall Live campaign on September the 6th 1942, at Hanley’s Victoria Hall, Czechoslovakia’s President-in-exile, Dr Edvard Beneš stated
“This meeting has made it clear that Lidice has not died, it lives on in the hearts of the people of Stoke-on-Trent, at least.”
More cities heeded the cries of “Lidice Shall Live!” Soon Derby, Birmingham, Nottingham, Coventry and others would rise in defiance of Hitler, who had vowed that Lidice would “Die Forever”.
The Path to Lidice honours the thousands of people of all nationalities across the United States, Britain, Europe, the Western Hemisphere, and beyond, yet to be acknowledged for the part they played to help Lidice live again. It remembers the victims of atrocity in all its forms, and at all levels, everywhere. The book features contributions from the Lidice Lives organisation, the Lidice Memory association, the Lidice Memorial, and other international friends and associates, relatives of the campaigners, as well as contemporary international artists.
The release of The Path to Lidice coincides with the 80th anniversaries of the US-inspired Lidice Lives campaign, and the British grassroots movement, Lidice Shall Live.
