Lidice, Central Bohemia, Oct 3 (CTK) – The Lidice Memorial, marking the village razed to the ground by the Nazis in 1942, has registered a record high attendance approaching 100,000 this year, which means a 260-precent year-on-year rise, its director Milous Cervencl has told CTK.
The Lidice Memorial state organisation also administers the commemorative places in Lezaky, east Bohemia, a village obliterated by the Nazis after Lidice in 1942, and in Lety, south Bohemia, where a Nazi internment camp for Romanies existed during WWII.
All the three memorials have been visited by 124,000 people so far this year (until September), while Lidice is the most visited site of them, Cervencl said.
The exhibition in the Lidice Museum from 2006 offers screenings, photographs and audio recordings, which make a strong impression on the visitors.
Last year alone, the Lidice Memorial welcomed some 46,000 people about a quarter of whom were foreigners. The memorial has registered the same share of foreign visitors this year.
Apart from the museum, people can see the Lidice Gallery where a number of art exhibitions and other cultural events are held throughout the year.
“More and more visitors who buy tickets in the museum do not miss the gallery either,” Cervencl said.
Lidice was obliterated on June 10, 1942. All 173 men were executed, women and children were sent to concentration camps, while some of the children were selected for re-education in Germany. After the war, only 143 women and 17 children returned to the country.
The villages of Lidice and Lezaky were razed to the ground in retaliation for the killing of Deputy Reich-Protector of Bohemia and Moravia Reinhard Heydrich by Czechoslovak paratroopers in Prague in May 1942.
