It was 60 years before all
It was seven and when a day
That a village was built, you may know
Under the name of Lidice.
Not a stick, not a game and stone remain
There to mark where the fair Danubian Plain
Was rich in cattle and rich in grain
Far in Bohemia,
In the village of Lidice.
(At least that's what they say)
But all the villagers worked as a
(As these people have done since then)
In order to build a village in order to sit in the sun
As long walk to the Danube
By far Bohemia:
And they called Lidice ...
They built a church and built them a mill.
And Danube level at the fair,
For their souls confession and grind their grain,
And .. feed them wholesome .
And close to each other like swallows
They built their houses on the low ridges
From the banks of the river that turned the mill.
And every man his neighbor helped to lay
The stones of his house and raise their rays;
Up strongly in their woods and tight in its seams
A village was established as Lidice ...
As the year came again, as it was run,
In a village like Lidice?
First came the spring, with planting and sowing;
Then came the summer with hay and chopping;
Then came the fall, and the Harvest Home
And always in the winter with its short broad daylight,
Towards the end of the quiet afternoon.
(Children in school, but cominging home soon.
With crunchy young voices and gay;
Man in Kladno, miles away.
But) at home for dinner, expected soon
Late winter afternoon ...
The wise, kind hands and satisfied face
A woman at the window, so that tip ...
A peaceful place ... a happy place ...
How did the year turn as it came running
In 1941? -
In the village of Lidice?
First came the spring, with planting and sowing;
Then came the summer with hay and hoes:
Then came the autumn and the harvest home ...
Then came the executioner Heydrich, the Hun ...
"Mirko, Rakos the barns are full;
It is time to harvest the sugar beets. "
"Hush with clack, while a man eats!
I will think of harvest and sugar beet
When dinner is ready.
I have much on my mind, I heard women say
Of the metal-workers in Kladno today
The Heydrich the executioner comes our way-
God's curse be on him! "
"Man, what you say!
Heydrich but Hitler tool. "
What do you take me for, a fool-?
God's curse on him, anyway.
"Cross yourself, Mirko" "I've done." "And pray."
"I will pray when my dinner is ready."
Husband ... why your face is so gray? "
My face is gray with fear.
Heydrich, the executioner died today
From his wounds, the men say in Kladno. "
Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say ...
No man he was, but a ferocious beast ...
Do they know who killed him? "
Not "Still, they say:
Although she had smoked it for many a day ...
But they say we hid him here. "
"Here? Here in Lidice?"
"Here in Lidice."
"If I knew where she hid, I would not give them away"
"Yes ... All the village feels that way.
But difficult is the price we have to pay,
If they are not found, I'm afraid.
How will it turn out I could not ...
But my face is gray with fear. "
An officer went to Wilson Street,
A German officer jaunty and smart;
One on his cheek, he was wearing saber-cut,
And tailored well were the clothes he wore,
Dapper in uniform and smart.
And he was humming a waltz as he strolled on
A group of men by a large bill-board.
And he smiled and gently stopped in his tracks
When he bent down and studied the troubled back
The poor men read the word "reward!"
Two hundred thousand crowns in gold!
For information TOWARD
The capture of the cowardly and RUTHLESS KILLERS
By Reinhard Heydrich!
Reinhard Heydrich!
Heydrich are the pure in heart!)
He looked at the back and smiled and thought:
"Heydrich murderer is as good as caught!"
For well he knew what money can do
To a poor man's spirit (and a rich man is to-
For the more a man has, the more they owe,
And the more he must have, and so it goes).
They marched out of the public square.
Two hundred men in a row;
And at each step the distance
Each stone in the road, has everyone know the
And every street in the door, where
As a carefree boy, not long ago,
With boys his age, he would hide and run
And screaming, in the days when all
Was safe and free, and the school was ...
Not very long ago ...
And he was on his face, the soft June air,
And thought, "That can not be!"
The friendly houses, the small pension
Where times without number he had
One evening, and spoke with its neighbors are
Planting and politics (not a chair
At each table, he had not sat)
And welcomed the newcomer come in
With nod of greeting, the "Look who's here!" -
Spoken friendly over the edge
Pilsen beer from a mug ...
And the men he had welcomed with a lot of shouting,
And talked about football and about
The harvests. Hitler and how to keep ...
Were lined with him here ...
And a man thought the sun set
In his garden, where he left after his hoe;
And a man thought of walnut trees
He had climbed, and the day he broke his arm,
But it was not injured when his spirit now hurting
How happy childhood, as free from damage!
And one who was dying opened his eyes,
Because he smelled smoke, and stared at the sky
Cloudy and lurid with flames and smoke;
Of each building is blowing, it was
Burst from every rooftop and out
From every window-none was the first;
Burst from every window over him
The terrible shape of the flame,
And in the sky scraping, and jumped to the ground,
And ran through the village with a crackling noise
And suddenly roar when a roof fell in
And he thought of his mother, left alone
In the house, unable to rise from her chair;
And he came to his elbow and tried to crawl
In his home, the blood on the court,
But with every step I slip and fall,
For the slippery blood was everywhere.
Oh, many a faithful dog, the day
Stood by his master's body in check.
And tugged at the sleeve of one arm outstretched;
Or, put his paws on his master's chest,
Weeps with gasping jaws and whimpered
Look in his eyes glazing
And licked his face with a lot of tongue;
Nor would department of his dead friend,
Until she walked into his ribs and crushed his heart ...
The women and children out of the court
They marched, they may look easy
How powerful a country is Germany
That can pull unawake of his bed, not knowing
Unarmed man, murdered, where his
His wife and children have to watch and see;
They then dragged out of the truck and cart
In Germany, in Germany, -
The women, be the slaves of German men;
The children start life all over again,
In German schools, the German rules, -
As a butcher apprentice,
And hail and welcome the Master Mind
The world's chief butcher of human-kind ...
They knocked at the door, where a young woman was
Her first, her last man-child;
She heard them down Wilson Street,
She heard about the place of the machine-shots
The man told her she was dead;
And she bit and tied in a knot slippery
The string of fine man-child he was,
And threw it under the bed ...
She stood on trembling arms welcome
The men who entered Wilson Street;
! "There's no one here but me," she cried;
And her eyes were bright and hot in her head ...
"I'm too sick of the fever," she said,
"Into Germany, in Germany
Marched out of his or ... "
But the baby was whimpering under the bed-
And from the heels with a harsh cry
Have him out, but the baby was bleeding-
So against the wall they hit his head,
While the mother clutched in her clothes, and cried,
And cried and cried until she shot her.
Now, no game was left on a stone,
And the frame of a window sill
Where a woman could rest alone in the twilight,
Her arms aware the warmth of stone, -
Lidice, Lidice-
But they say that it is still there!
Yes, those who have been there say solid,
That every night when the moon is right,
That during the tenth June all day,
And thin and weird when the sun goes down
And the moon comes, Ste. Margaret's-
Spire and ship and the people in prayer
Are clearly visible and can happen
Your hand through the beautiful colored glass
And pull back on it ... and there is no blood!
And they say that men meet in the evening
Together and talk about Wilson Street
And draw deep breaths of air ...
Although Wilson Street with the rest of the city
On the tenth June burned, burned,
And there is nothing there ...
The Germans say there is nothing there.
Good people who call all of our graves we
To give you so happy and free;
Whether you live in a small village
Or in a large city with buildings,
Or the sandy secluded beach of the sea,
Or the wooded hills or the flat plains;
Listening to us talk, oh, dear, what we say;
We are the people of Lidice.
Listening to us talk, oh, listen to what we say.
Who and where also always be her ...
If you would like us to die!
Mouths of dead people once happy as you,
As happy as you and so free
Until she joined our country and slaughtered and killed,
And made us do what we do hate,
And then, oh, never forget the day! -
On the tenth of June '42
They murdered the village of Lidice!
Dead, dead,
Until the ashes of Lidice
Not tell you how they are caught
Of all in the morning one day in June
Caught and shot and put out of the way ...
(At least that's what they say)
Tell you anything to eat or drink
A morsel of food, a drink of
Before you think, before you think
What is the best way
Keep hating your country from the enemy-
Keep it by slanting bit by bit
On what is the death of it-
The whole world holds in his arms today
The murdered village of Lidice,
As the murdered body of a young child
Happy and innocent, caught in the game,
The murdered body colored, and violated,
Tortured and mutilated, of a helpless child, -
And groans of vengeance hear terrible
From the throat of a global reach, has his ear.
The maniac killer who is still running wild,
Where he sits, wah its long and cruel thumb
Eating biscuits, roll the crumbs
Into balls (for the day is always near
On the other threat, another fear,
Another murder of a gentle and mild)
But a moaning howl of revenge is coming,
Holy Revenge terrible and expensive;
Was out of the throat of a world that has close
And seen too much, too much at last
Whines of revenge sacred and dear,
For the murdered body of a helpless child-
And unreconciled terrible sob!
Careless America, crooning a tune! -
Stop him! Catch him and keep him soon!
Never let him come back!
Think for a moment: Are we immune?
Oh, my country so stupid and love,
Contemptuous America. crooning a tune
Thinking. Think we are immune -?
Catch him, catch him and stop him soon!
Never let him come back!
Ask yourself, ask yourself: What have we done -?
Who, after all. are we? -
We should probably sit in the sun,
The only country, the only
Unmolested and free?
Stop him! Stop him! Do not wait!
Or will you wait, and the fate
Of Lidice?
Or will you wait and let him destroy
The village of Lidice, Illinois?
Oh, catch it! Catch him and keep him soon!
Never let him come back!
Text: Edna St. Vincent Millay