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Essay / Death of Reinhard Heydrich
In April 1939, the Nazis entered Lidice, Czechoslovakia. None of the locals paid much attention, but what happened three years later almost wiped Lidice off the map. What did Lidice do to deserve what happened to them? The Lidice Massacre began with the mission “Operation Anthropoid”. The mission was to assassinate senior Nazi officials. The SOE chose Reinhard Heydrich to kill. Heydrich was a man who executed people at random to spread fear in the country, and he also imprisoned millions of people. He was also one of Hitler's best men. Agents Jan Kubis and Joseph Gabcik were elected to carry out the mission. They located Heydrich's coordinates, and as Heydrich's car rounded the corner, Gabcik came out of hiding, ready to shoot, but his gun jammed. Fortunately, Kubis acted quickly and threw a bomb under Heydrich's car. Heydrich ended up dying 8 days later in hospital from a blood infection. Heydrich's death angered Hitler. He ordered the death of 10,000 Czechs and even declared: "give the Czechs one last lesson in servility and humility." Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay By the time Heydrich died, 157 people had already been executed and Hitler was on his way to uncover the Heydrich murders. The Germans searched more than 5,000 countries, arrested 3,180 people, placed 1,344 people awaiting execution, and Hitler threatened to kill 30,000 innocent Czechs. Fortunately, these plans were never implemented. However, with these new orders, Prague (the capital of Czechoslovakia) imposed a curfew on its population. Nine days after this order was sent, Kubis and Gabcik were discovered. Kubis died of his wounds and Gabcik is said to have committed suicide to avoid capture. After the agents' deaths, Hitler wanted further revenge. He ordered Lidice to be demolished. The Nazis were supposed to destroy another Lidice, but the plan was already in action before anyone noticed. On June 9, 1942, 10 trucks full of Nazi “police” arrived in Lidice. They took all the villagers to the square. There, they separated women and children on one side, and men (15 years or older) on the other side. The women and children were detained at a school, but the men were taken to a nearby farm. The men were confronted by a barn by ten and were immediately shot. 192 men were shot dead along with a few women who were working while the Nazis took everyone away. On June 11, 30 Jews were brought to Lidice to dig graves for the men and build a fence with a sign reading: "Anyone who approaches this fence and does not stop when stopped will be shot." » The women were transferred to Ravensbruck with four pregnant women who were "allowed" to give birth to their babies whom they would never see again. I found out that only 60 of the 203 women who went to Ravensbruck died, which is relatively low, but amazing that so many survived. Along with the children, the Nazis chose a handful to “Germanize” them. To be even more rude, Hitler only chose seven of the handful to "Germanize" and said to kill the rest. The remaining children, who could not be "Germanized", were sent to an extermination camp in Chelmno. It is said that they were killed on the day of their arrival. 82 children died there. Only 17 children returned home. After all the villagers were shot or deported, the Nazis attacked the houses and took everything.