*A 3 km walk around the poignant Lidice memorial area*

A 3 km walk around the poignant Lidice memorial area

In the early hours of Wednesday 10 June 1942, the population of a small village 20km to the northwest of Prague, were rounded up by Nazi soldiers. 173 men were summarily executed by firing squad in the courtyard of the Horák farm, while the the women and children were moved to a school in Kladno.
Three days later, the women and children were separated. The women were transported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany, where many failed to survive the remainder of the war. Most of the children were transported to Chełmno in Poland, where they were gassed to death in the back of specially adapted vehicles.
The village of Lidice was then completely and utterly demolished. All of this was in reprisal for the attack on the Reich-Protector Reinhard Heydrich carried out by Czechoslovak parachutists in Prague on 27 May 1942. Heydrich was mortally wounded in the attack and died a week later.
However, the attempt to wipe Lidice and its population from the face of the planet failed quite spectacularly. Today, memorials exist across the world to the innocent victims of the Lidice massacre. None are more poignant than the site of the original village, now a peaceful and green park area beside the newly rebuilt Lidice village. A short walk around this beautiful memorial area is highly recommended.
There are several parking zones, and also regular buses to close to the memorial entrance. A full tour of the area, including the separate memorials to the men, women and children victims, as well as the extraordinary rose garden (with over 24000 rose bushes) is around 3km. The paths are excellent and suitable for strollers.

Note: click ‘Show on Mapy.com’ to go to a full screen version of the route directly on the mapy.com site. This can be used for on line navigation, saved or exported as a GPX file.

Directions

If travelling by public transport, take a bus to the main Lidice memorial stop (there are regular buses from the Prague metro stations Veleslavín and Zličín)
From the bus stop, walk down the tree lined avenue to the main memorial area and museum
On the right side is the amazing rose garden and from there the paths wind around the various monuments and statues, all of which are worth visiting
Return back to the main memorial area on the central path – which is also the GREEN marked hiking trail