Notes

Historical effects
what impact or significance on history did your topic have on individuals?

what was the immediate impact?
After the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, it triggered the greatest manhunt of the Third Reich. The Gestapo (Secret State Police) knew that the assassination was planned by the British from the British sub-machine-gun abandoned at the scene. The Nazis offered money for the Czechs arrest and proclaimed a law that all over the age of 15 had to register with the police is not they would get shot.

what was the impact years later?
short/long term

what was the negative impact of the topic?
The Germans unleashed a severe retaliation. Hitler lashed out by murdering thousands of Jews. He wanted to kill 10,000 Czech political prisoners, but high-ranking Nazi and military commander Heinrich Himmler convinced him that they needed the Czechs to keep the Protectorate industrially productive. Still, more than 13,000 were arrested, and 5,000 were murdered in reprisals. Due to false information, the Nazis thought the assassins were hiding in Lidice, a village near Prague, and found a radio resistance transmitter in Ležáky. The Germans took revenge on Lidice by killing all 199 men in the town, arresting the 195 women and sending them to Ravensbrück concentration camp and taking the 95 children, eight of whom were given to German families. Most of the children disappeared; in all probability they were gassed. Lidice was razed June 9, 1942, and the ruins were bulldozed. The revenge on Ležáky was a nightmare as well. All the adults were murdered while the children disappeared, except for two who were handed over to Nazi families. The town was razed.
Very early in the morning of June 10, 1942, cameras shot silent footage of the events at Lidice. The Horák farm served as the execution ground for 173 males above the age of sixteen; all were shot to death. The women and children were taken to the gym of the elementary school in Kladno. Three days later, the children were taken from their mothers.


how did the topic impact life socially? or politically?
By 1945, Czechoslovakia had endured seven years of Nazi rule. No longer Czechoslovakia, it was now the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and the Slovak Republic. Factories churned out weaponry for the German Army. Signs had to be printed in German, with the Czech names underneath. The country had little national identity.