May 27th, 1942-Personal Narrative

May 27th, 1942. A day of resistance, a day of power, a day of sadness. This was the day everything started, my life and the rest of the people's lives in Lidice was over.
For centuries Lidice was just a small ordinary agricultural village, nothing really happened much. My family and I ran a small shop in the center of town. I am a husband and a father 3 beautiful children, Adula (15), Paula (10), and Bazil (7). They helped around the shop filling shelves with more bread and sweeping the floors. My wife would sell the bread and I would bake it. We were a great team. Every morning before the kids would go to school I would say a prayer “May it be Your will, G-d, our G-d and the G-d of our fathers, that You should lead us in peace and direct
our steps in peace, and guide us in peace, and support us in peace, and cause us to reach our destination in life, joy, and peace and return us in peace). Save us from every enemy and ambush, from robbers and wild beasts on the trip, and from all kinds of punishments that rage and come to the world. May You confer blessing upon the work of our hands and grant me grace, kindness, and mercy in Your eyes and in the eyes of all who see us, and bestow upon us abundant kindness and hearken to the voice of our prayer, for You hear the prayers of all. Blessed are You G-d, who hearkens to prayer.” I always wanted to keep them safe. When Germany had put Hitler in charge and i started hearing his speeches I felt myself saying that prayer more frequently. One day I was baking bread in the back when I started hearing people shouting outside. I ran out to the storefront window and saw nazi shoulders marching down the street. In the front of the line was Reinhard Heydrich. There was 10 men shackled together, their faces bruised and their clothes stained with blood. He told us that his is what happens when you are in the anti-fascist resistance and that any people that were in the group should turn themselves in. He put them on their knees and shots rang out. Their bodies lay limp on the ground and people started crying. I grabed my kids and we ran back home, dinner was quiet and everyone was petrified by what they saw. I told my kids everything would be fine. May 27th, 1942 I heard some sounds outside and i jumped out of my bed and looked out the window, There was some boys running down the streets shouting Kill the Nazis!
I was confused and asked my neighbor what was going on, He replied to me his face pale but smiling; Heydrich is wounded, 2 boys blew up his car with a grenade attack I was happy but at the same side scared, One side of me thought we fought back, they can’t take control of us, but the other side made me think that there were going to be consequences for the
country.

June 4th 1942 heinrich died.
German troops started entering Lidice by the hundreds, we had never seen this before. The Gestapo started ransacking our house and looking for anything suspicious. Then they just left, nobody said anything. everyone was confused, Why would they just leave like that? If only i had known that they didn't leave they were only waiting. (after the funeral of Heindrich Hitler ordered Karl Frank that the small community lidice would be wiped out as punishment) On June 9th we were all sleeping in our bedrooms when we were woken up by the sound of trucks driving in, german soldiers broke into the house and ordered us to go to the village square. My youngest Bazil was crying and i knew something was terribly wrong. They told me to go to one side of the square while my children and my wife had to go to the other side, i was reluctant and screaming, they couldn't do this! My oldest daughter was screaming “dad, dad” but i couldn't do anything, they were pushing me farther away and i lost sight of them. They locked us into Horak farm. I knew it was over the second they broke me away from my family. My fingers were clenching and i was so angry i felt helpless. I knew i was going to be the first to die because i am jewish. I tried to hide it as best as i could when the soldiers always came into town but i knew they would find out somehow. When the more german soldiers started to watch us i saw some of the men whispering to each other. I stared at one of the
german soldiers for a long time and realized that he was wearing a ring, it was strange, it looked exactly like my wife's ring, I got up and started yelling, you took my wife ring you took it and tried to throw a punch, some other guys started to get up seeing that some of the soilders had taken their stuff too Then a fire rang out, everyone sat down and kept doing what they were doing. That morning up woke up to the sound of orders ringing through the crowd, we were lined up outside, I glanced back and saw my kids getting into one of the trucks and getting droven off, i asked the guy next to me if he knew were they were taking them, he told me the best bet was a concentation camp… my first thought was at least their not dead but i knew that concentration camps could be even worse than dying. I looked in front of me and saw mattresses lined up against the barn, and i knew that i was dead.

I felt pressure on my head and then there was nothing.

The village was gone and everyone living there was either dead or shipped away to rot in concentration camps. My youngest son died of Hyperthermia the first winter they were there, my wife had gone insane by then and was killed after she started mumbling and staring in the distance for over two days. My two daughters survived for as long as they could but Paula was died of starvation. Adula stayed alive for almost 4 years in the concentration camp but was killed after the guards found that she was stealing food.

As for the village there is still nothing left,in a few days it went from a town of about 3,500 people to zero. it was wiped of the map after June 10th. All the houses were burned down and everything was gone not even the outline of the town survived. The S.S recorded the whole thing and showed it to everyone around the world. The whole world was shocked.