‘£1M’ WAS RAISED IN NORTH STAFFS

NORTH Staffs GP and councillor Sir Barnett Stross, pictured, launched the Lidice Shall

Live campaign in Hanley on September 6, 1942.

It followed a Nazi atrocity in what is now the Czech Republic. In response to the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich by Czech resistance fighters, Adolf Hitler ordered the village to be wiped out. On June 10, 1942, Nazi soldiers killed all the village’s men, while all women and children were separated and transported to a concentration camp.

Stross was angered by the events and launched the campaign to revive Lidice alongside the Czechoslovak president in exile Dr Edvard Benes, the president of the Miners’ Federation

Will Lawther, and the Soviet Ambassador Bogomolov at the Victoria Hall, before an audience of some 3,000 people.

The people of North Staffordshire raised £32,000 towards the rebuilding of Lidice – the equivalent of £1million today – which helped construction to start two years after the war. The city’s connection with Lidice has remained strong. ‘Lidice Way’ was named as a road near the bus station. A permanent memorial next to the road was put up, made up of discs representing the tags worn by miners who raised the money. In 2017, the city was presented with a civic key to Lidice.