Commemorative event marks 83rd anniversary of Lidice tragedy

President Petr Pavel and other state officials attended a ceremony on Saturday marking the 83rd anniversary of the Nazi destruction of Lidice. The event was quiet and without speeches, consisting of a mass, the laying of flowers, and a tribute to the children who were murdered.

Lidice, a village northwest of Prague, was one of two Czech villages completely wiped out by German forces in retaliation for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the top Nazi official in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

On June 10, 1942, all 173 men over the age of 15 were rounded up and executed. Women and children were sent to concentration camps, where many died.

The last surviving Lidice woman, Jaroslava Skleničková, died last September at the age of 98. Just six of the children who lived through the massacre are still alive today.