In April 1939 the Nazis arrived in Lidice, Czechoslovakia. None of the residents paid much attention, but what happened three years later almost put Lidice off the map. What did Lidice do to deserve what happened to them? The Lidice Massacre all started with the “Operation Anthropoid” mission. The mission was to assassinate senior Nazi officials. The SOE chose Reinhard Heydrich to kill him. Heydrich was a man who executed people at random to instill fear in the country and also imprisoned millions. He was also one of Hitler's best men. Agents Jan Kubis and Joseph Gabcik were elected to carry out the mission. They located Heydrich's coordinates, and as Heydrich's car rounded the corner, Gabcik emerged from hiding, ready to fire, but his gun jammed. Fortunately, Kubis acted quickly and threw a bomb under Heydrich's car. Heydrich ended up dying 8 days later in hospital from a blood infection. Heydrich's death infuriated Hitler. He ordered the death of 10,000 Czechs, he also said, "teaches the Czechs a final lesson in submission and humility." Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay By the time Heydrich died, 157 people had already been executed and Hitler was on the move to uncover Heydrich's murders. The Germans searched over 5,000 towns, arrested 3,180, had 1,344 people executed, and Hitler threatened to kill 30,000 innocent Czechs. These plans fortunately were never implemented. With these new orders in place, however, Prague (the capital of Czechoslovakia) has imposed a curfew for its citizens. Nine days after this order was issued, Kubis and Gabcik were discovered. Kubis died of his wounds and Gabcik is said to have committed suicide so as not to be captured. After the agents were dead, Hitler wanted more revenge. He ordered Lidice to be demolished. The Nazis were supposed to destroy another Lidice, but the plan was already in motion before anyone noticed. On June 9, 1942, 10 trucks full of Nazi “police” entered Lidice. They brought all the villagers to the square. There they separated women and children on one side and males (15 years and older) on the other. The women and children were kept in a school, but the men were taken to a nearby farm. The men were placed against a barn 10 at a time and shot immediately. 192 men were shot along with a couple of women who had been at work while the Nazis took everyone. On June 11, 30 Jews were brought to Lidice to dig graves for the men and to build a fence with a sign that read: "Anyone who approaches this fence and does not stop when challenged will be shot." The women were relocated. in Ravensbruck along with four pregnant women who were “allowed” to give birth to their babies who they would never see again I found that only 60 of the 203 women who went to Ravensbruck died, a relatively low number, but surprising that they did so. many survived. With the children, the Nazis chose a handful to "Germanize." To be even more rude, however, Hitler chose only seven from the handful to "Germanize" and said to kill the rest of the children who couldn't being “Germanized” they were sent to the Chelmno extermination camp. They were said to have been killed on the day of their arrival. Only 17 children returned home. the Nazis raided homes and took anything of value. Having taken their values, the engineers came to Lidice and blew up all the standing buildings. Domestic animals were also killed. You could.