On this day 79 years ago, March 15, 1939, the Germans occupied what remained of Czechoslovakia after its dismemberment by the Munich Conference on September 30, 1938. Czech President Benes, fearing his people would be slaughtered since they had been abandoned by their allies England and France, ordered his armed forces not to resist. The Czechs now began a long and heroic resistance to Nazi rule, culminating on May 27, 1942, when Czech resistance fighters attempted to assassinate SS Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich by throwing a bomb at his car as he rode through Prague. When Heydrich died on June 4, thousands of Czechs were murdered in retaliation, and the tiny village of Lidice was razed to the ground. All males 15 years old and above were shot. The women and children were sent to concentration camps. The children with “Aryan” features were sent to German foster homes, to be raised as Germans. Only 9 were ever found after the war.
I am posting this in the hope that if such tragedies as this are remembered, they will not be repeated.
