Lidice Day Trip and Birthday Evening

What a lovely day! It started in the beginning, when I entered the breakfast room and was greeted with a "Happy Birthday!" that rippled throughout the room. I did feel strange, but instead of reflecting as usual upon the passing of another year I thought of my present situation. After a bit of pensiveness early in the day I became convinced that I am the luckiest girl in the world. Being in Prague on my birthday and having the opportunity to live here for a few months is more than I could ever ask for. All day at random moments (aside from when we were in Lidice) I simply declared my happiness. I could not stop smiling. The magic of this place is somehow contagious and I feel now as though I actually understand part of it.

 I went on a day trip today with people from my program and from the other program with which we are taking classes. We visited a historical Orthodox church called Karel Boromejsky Church, made famous for the gunfight that took place between Czech resistance fighters and SS troops. The fighters were taking refuge in the church because they were on the lam, two of the party having ambushed and assassinated the Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Reinhard Heydrich. The consequence of the attack on Heydrich came in the subsequent destruction of the town of Lidice, which we visited later in the day.

18 June 1942 was the date of the battle in the church. A priest was kind enough to give us a ten or fifteen minute talk on the history of the Church, which was followed by a film in the downstairs part of the Church. They've created a museum at street level, seen in the photo below:

Between the lecture and the film I was able to get the whole story (and then some). Beres, the head of the Czech government in exile in the UK, trained a group of Czech insurgents assassinate Heydrich. They got a bit of help from the British in terms of armaments and training, it seems. Two soldiers named Jan Kubiš and Jozef Gabčík were chosen to carry out the mission and were trained as paratroopers. They attacked Heydrich on his way to work--laden with hubris, the man traveled to work in an uncovered Mercedes as though he were fearless.


At the arranged moment, the intended assassin revealed himself. Unfortunately, his gun jammed and he stood helplessly gaping feet away from his target. Heydrich made his driver stop and tried to shoot Gabčík, but Kubiš threw the bomb he had been hiding in a briefcase. He escaped and Heydrich died in the hospital.


A manhunt followed which ended in the death of Kubiš and other soldiers hiding in the Church as well as the suicide of seven soldiers hiding in the cellar (also a crypt where former monks corpses lay). It was before this crypt we watched the documentary (complete with dramatic re-enactions); then we were allowed to tour the crypt and memorial of these Czech soldiers.

And this is the inside of the Church

...this is the outside of the Church.

As stated earlier, the consequence of the assassination of Heydrich was the destruction of Lidice. In addition, over one thousand Czech citizens were executed and more than six thousand more were killed during interrogations. The Czech people were frightened into declaring their loyalty to Germany. We were shown old footage of Czechs gathering in Wenceslas Square and the Old Town Square, Heiling en masse, apparently immediately after the interrogations. Upon finding no trace of the assassins, Hitler ordered the demolition of the structures of Lidice, the assassination of the men in the village, the appropriation of suitable Aryan children for adoption into SS families, and the commitment to concentration camps of mostly all the women and children. 

Setting off from the Church we headed toward Lidice. Upon our arrival we headed straight toward the lunch that we had chosen earlier in the day. My tortellini was borderline gross-- I was anticipating an alfredo and was quite excited when it was set in front of me, but only pushed the pastas around once I forced down a few which were covered in a disturbing yogurt sauce. 

Aside from the happy realization that the beer was included in the flat price of the meal, the experience was redeemed when the ice cream came into which my friend Colette stuck a recycled candle that she had found in her purse. My table began singing and the rest of the group joined in upon hearing the popular refrain, but at the "happy birthday dear Kelly" it became clear that more than half of the students didn't know my name. It was funny and I was exceedingly pleased nonetheless.

There was a town that had been built on slightly higher ground after the destruction of the original Lidice and several memorials and monuments are built throughout a giant field of freshly mown grass. We walked through the memorial on the upper level which overlooked the former site of the town.

The view of the site from the museum level

I have a bunch of videos but I'm having trouble uploading them. I am not sure if they're in the wrong format and because I can't find any specs, I assume blogger videos use any format. The video won't load (though I've tried a few different formats). It's quite frustrating.

In any case, here are some photos from the memorials:

Memorial statue of the eighty-eight children from Lidice who were killed.

After the tour of Lidice's burial ground we walked through the museum which mostly served as a memorial to those victims of the destruction. 

It was pretty sad, but one unmentioned aspect of the tragedy remained unsaid by the tour guide. What I feel to be the most poignant part of the destruction of Lidice is that it is but a mere slice of the destruction inflicted by the Nazis. Though it is tragic on it's own, when viewed  in that vein it seems to gain greater importance.

We returned to the same building in which we ate that unsavory lunch for an appointment with one of the women who survived the destruction as a child. When we had been in the restaurant, I wasn't aware that it was attached to the event center in the town. We were quite lucky to be a part of Mrs. Skleniĉkova's presentation: she has written a book, “If I had been born a boy, I would have been shot...” which chronicled her life before, during, and after her experience in a concentration camp as a political prisoner. She read some bits of her book in Czech and one of the students read the English translation of each anecdote. There was also a representative from a local radio station with a flash recorder. The author was kind enough to join us downstairs so some of the students could get her autograph on their new copies of her memoir.

On a lighter note...

While we were returning to Prague I remembered that it was my birthday. I was happy to have a sobering experience that distracted me from my superficial egotism. Nonetheless, without any other thoughts to occupy me I gratefully watched the landscape pass my window.

When we got back the dorm I went for a walk to the cafe down the road. It's just past the tram stop which is about ¼ of the distance to the castle. It was nice to sit with a cappuccino and some postcards. I feel that I am struggling to keep up with what I'm writing, but I want to share everything. I assume my days will become slightly less exciting when the Czech intensive classes start on Monday.

I then joined some friends on a trip to an office in the metro station a few minutes' walk from a stop on the tram that runs by our place. The tram itself took awhile but I hadn't been that far down before. To go to school we get off the tram at one end of a bridge; our school is on the other side of the Charles. The 22 tram, which stops by our dorm, crosses the river farther down the river and goes past the national theater. After getting a 3-month public transportation pass (720K) I headed back to the tram stop.

 I popped into a gallery on the way. The sidewalk was filled with people drinking and smoking cigarettes with strangely almost no one inside. The exhibition was produced by a group of American artists; I involuntarily picked up the postcard advertisement, realizing it was a map of Manhattan. It was the first event of that kind I've witnessed thus far and I am eager to attend more of these openings. On the tram home we were scouting for dinner spots and after admiring a few places just across the river from the National Theater we resolved to return that way for my birthday dinner.

Upon returning to the dorm, it turned out that my roommate Brielle and friend Neil (who were coming to dinner as well) had made a cake for me! I can't explain how great that made me feel. It's silly but it sort of made my day feel complete.

We dined at a place off the tram stop that seemed to be upper-scale Czech cuisine. It was not nearly as quaintly elegant as the cafe we patronized our first evening but it seemed slightly less touristy. Though they somehow ran out of all the red wine but this Czech wine, after it was open for a bit (or after I consumed it for a bit) it became to be quite good. I had roast duck wrapped in bacon, the others sampled local cuisine as well. Perhaps because we were Americans, but I'm not sure, they piled our plates high with the potatoes we had ordered. I don't often leave potatoes behind on my plate but I did last night.

Neil and I after dinner

We then walked into Old Town (across the bridge) in search of a bar I had read about online. We found it eventually--the streets are meandering and it's easy to get lost around here when one doesn't know their way around. We were all actually exasperated (despite the fact that we are all pretty even-tempered) when we ran right into it. It's a strange place that seems like a bit of a fire trap, but it was much easier to get out than the roundabout route on which we came in.

Niel and Brielle at the pub

The National Theater

Well, it was just about a perfect day.