‘The beauty inside all our hearts was to shine forth – like a joyous sunburst from behind a cloud’
As the Lidice Shall Live campaign prepares to mark its 80th anniversary, North Staffordshire historian MERVYN EDWARDS looks at the partnership and plans for a Legacy Garden...
MANY years ago I visited the Oriel Mostyn Art Gallery in Llandudno, which was offering a temporary exhibition. It was well and truly brought to life with the screening – on a loop – of an accompanying short film.
The exhibition recalled the Nazi atrocities in the Czechoslovakian mining village of Lidice in 1942, and the film that was being shown was The Silent Village (1943).
I’ve written before in this newspaper that some of the best art messes with your mind, but to watch this film was a visceral experience that left me emotionally compromised. I felt as if I had been hit in the stomach by a bag of potatoes.
The Silent Village is Humphrey Jennings’ brilliant re-telling of the massacre of Lidice – set in the Welsh mining village of Cwmgiedd.
It is a compelling, gut-wrenching propaganda film, whose message to its viewers was crystal clear – this was the brutal foe that will march on your own community lest we defeat it.
Memories of the German atrocities in Lidice were all too recent in the minds of peaceable Europeans by 1943.
In May 1942, with Czechoslovakia in German occupation and with the Czech government in exile, assassins attacked the car of Reinhard Heydrich, the General of Police. He ultimately perished from the injuries he sustained in the attack.
Adolf Hitler’s reprisals were thunderbolt-quick and totally ruthless. “Lidice shall die forever,” he raged. He decreed that all adult men should be executed, that women should be transported to concentration camps, and that children should be Germanised.
An estimated 340 people from Lidice were slaughtered – 192 men, 60 women and 88 children. Even animals – beasts of burden and pets – were destroyed in an act of ineffable evil.
A river passing through the village was diverted, and even the dead were not permitted to rest peacefully beneath the sod – being exhumed from the cemetery. The village itself was burnt to a cinder, the only living thing left being a lone pear tree.
Man’s inhumanity to man was rarely evinced as graphically as this – but the beauty that wells inside all our hearts was to shine forth, a joyous sunburst from behind a cloud.
Bear in mind that virtually no-one in our city had previously heard of faraway Lidice – but the reaction in the coalmining area of Stoke-ontrent was nothing short of phenomenal.
It was encapsulated in the oft-used Sentinel photograph of the huge meeting at Hanley’s Victoria Hall, whose 3,000 attendees – and their banner – declared, “Lidice Shall Live!”
The gathering was addressed by Dr Edouard Benes, the leader of the Czech government in exile. The drive to rebuild Lidice was spearheaded by Polish-born Hanley MP Barnett Stross, who determined to gather funds for the reconstruction – as did like-minded campaigners in other UK cities such as Birmingham,
Derby, Coventry, Nottingham and Durham.
Stross was to receive the White
Lion of Czechoslovakia award, acknowledging his contribution, later becoming chairman of the British czechoslovakian Society.
The North Staffordshire mining communities raised £32,000 – which in 1947 would have been viewed as wealth beyond the dreams of Croesus – and this allowed work to start on the rebuilding of Lidice and 150 new homes.
In 1956, the world’s largest rose garden was planted, forming a bridge
between the sites of the original and new villages.
The Lidice Lives campaign – backed by Stoke-on-trent City Council – has worked wonders in raising awareness of the Lidice story, though no-one has been more unstintingly active than Alan and Cheryl Goddard, who run Theartbay art gallery in Fenton.
On June 10 this year – the 79th anniversary of the tragedy – they took the next few tentative steps towards celebrating the Stoke-lidice connection in grand style.
I joined the Gerrards, civic dignitaries and other community leaders for a modest ceremony at the junction of Broad Street and Morley Street in Hanley.
In truth, this neglected wasteland is not the most prepossessing pocket of Hanley. However, watch this dandelion-sprouting space.
As Cheryl told the gathering: “We are extremely proud to see the Czech flag flying over Hanley and Stoke Town Halls.
“The land here was donated by Tesco to the Lidice Lives organisation, and the idea is that we work towards a sculpture that would be a centrepiece for a garden of peace and friendship and a legacy for the Lidice Shall Live campaign.”
Councillor Cheryl spoke of the plans and partners involved in commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Lidice atrocity next year – and added that September 6, 2022, will see the 80th anniversary of the inauguration of the Lidice Shall Live campaign.
The launch of that initiative represents, for me, one of Stoke’s finest moments.
It may be ironic to some that a city that is often insular and backwardlooking can find within itself a sense of hands-across-the-sea internationalism.
In truth, it has always been there, like a forget-me-not hiding in the shade.
We think of Josiah Wedgwood’s global hobnobbing in the late 18th century, the Michelin story, Smallthorne and Esperanto, Stoke’s twinning arrangement with Erlangen in Germany – and as a former
Potteries Marathon runner, I am bound to say this – the welcome that French athletes from Limoges regularly received in the city.
It is a theme that Alan Gerrard is keen to develop: “As the communities of Lidice and Stoke-ontrent began to resurrect links in 2010, it soon became very apparent that it wasn’t just about reuniting two long-lost sisters – joyful though that was.
“We were being introduced to an entire extended family of kindred spirits, cities, towns and communities with a common empathy with Stoke-on-trent, but co-existing in ignorance of our city for 80 years.
“Like Stoke, they had done their part to keep the name of Lidice alive in the face of Nazi aggression and in the name of peace. They were British or international communities.
“Other kindred spirits recognised the moral force that insisted on change to redress wrongdoing – communities who shared similar fates to Lidice who we would encounter at Lidice collaborative events across the globe.
“We met kindred spirits who felt compelled to join our mission because of Stoke’s links with other cities, such as Erlangen, our historical twin city.”
So what is the future of this fag-end piece of turf, hitherto spurned by all and sundry?
Well, I see it being transformed into something spellbinding, capable of inspiring local people and significantly boosting tourism to Stoke-on-trent. It will be a must-see.
“The installation of Carl Payne’s sculpture, Legacy, on this site will act as a magnet for like-minded communities to donate their contributions of civic art,” views
Alan.
“Over time, the garden will develop because the process is an end in itself.”
Carl Payne’s planned sculpture, by the way, holds all the promise of taking its place as one of the most mesmerising art installations in the city, offering the public a chance to interact with it and be part of that fanfare for global friendship.