June 10, 2017: Lidice Memorial Park, Crest Hill, Illinois
Commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Lidice massacre
Despite Hitler’s determination to erase Lidice from all maps and human memory, the village (rebuilt) and its story continue to be remembered and told through commemorative ceremonies, news media, books, music, poetry, theater, art and film.
In the U.S., Lidice is remembered at annual ceremonies in Crest Hill, Illinois, and Phillips, Wisconsin. In Czech Republic, the activities and institutions of Pamatnik Lidice (Lidice Memorial) are dedicated to remembering the victims of all conflicts and to reminding the world that oppression, conflicts and dictators can and do continue to breed the kinds of violence that destroyed innocent lives at Lidice.
Photo above: June 10, 2017: Memorial Ceremony Color Guard at Lidice Memorial Park, Crest Hill, Illinois, near Joliet. The color guard bears flags of the United States, Slovak Republic and Czech Republic. These young men, left to right, are members of the American Sokol organization, which has its roots in the former Czechoslovakia: Ted Polashek, Sokol Tabor; John Fron, Sokol Tabor; Michael Dropka, Sokol Town of Lake.
Lidice Memorial Parkway leads to the park and its memorial rose garden, situated in a neighborhood of Crest Hill formerly known as “Lidice.” The consul general of the Czech Republic in Chicago addressed the gathering at this annual commemoration. Following the ceremony, the Czech film “Lidice” (2011) was shown at Crest Hill Library branch of the White Oak Library District.
Below, a copy of the program for the Crest Hill 75th commemoration.
Crest Hill’s Lidice Memorial Park is under the auspices of the National Czech and Slovak Museum of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
June 10, 2017
Lidice Monument and service. Sokol Park in Phillips, Wisconsin
Facebook page, by Toni Brendel
Sept. 21, 1965: NBC reports
The Huntley-Brinkley Report on the NBC network was a prime source of television news during the 1960s. When Chet Huntley reported from the village of Lidice, Czech Republic, in September 1965, his story struck a chord with a resident of Crest Hill, Illinois, who requested a copy of the script for the Crest Hill Public Library’s archives. This copy of David Brinkley’s letter to her, accompanied by Huntley’s original script, offers lessons in editing for broadcast from the 1960s.
Reprinted with permission of NBC and courtesy of the Lidice archives at the Crest Hill branch of the White Oak Library District near Joliet, Illinois.
1942: United States Office of War Information
In 2017 the McNay Art Museum of San Antonio, Texas, acquired “This is Nazi Brutality,” an offset lithograph (below) produced in 1942 by artist Ben Shahn (1898-1969) and issued by the United States Office of War Information. The artist, born in Lithuania, was an American citizen.
Shahn was commissioned to design a poster that would raise public awareness of Nazi atrocities in Czech communities during World War II. Lyle Williams, curator of the Prints and Drawings collection at the McNay, discusses this acquisition in “Art Minute.”
The piece is a gift of M. Mary Flanagan and Michael J. Lichtenstein to The McNay Art Museum, and it is part of the McNay’s Prints and Drawings collection. Other copies of this lithograph are in the collections of The Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and Florida International University in Miami. Reproduced with permission of The McNay Art Museum, San Antonio.
Copyright 2017 by Elizabeth Cernota Clark
