The early hours of 15 March 1939.

German troops begin crossing the borders of the Czech lands, advancing into
Bohemia and Moravia without meeting organised resistance.

Columns of Wehrmacht – the German
Army- move along main roads toward key cities, while armoured vehicles and motorised
formations enter Prague before dawn.

The occupation follows directly from the
political collapse of the Czechoslovak state, as President Emil Hácha, under pressure in
Berlin the night before, has accepted German demands and effectively surrendered control of
the country.

As German forces enter the capital, snow and cold weather accompany their arrival.

Civilians watch in silence as soldiers march through the streets and take control of
government buildings, communication centres, and strategic points across the city.

By
morning, Prague is fully in German hands, and similar scenes unfold across the rest of the
territory, where local authorities are replaced or subordinated to German command.

On this day, Adolf
Hitler arrives at Prague Castle and proclaims the establishment of the Protectorate of Bohemia and
Moravia.

This formalizes reality on the ground: the complete loss of sovereignty and the
beginning of an occupation that will soon be marked by repression, resistance, and, in
1942, acts of terror such as the destruction of the village of Ležáky, which will claim
44 lives of Czech men, women and children.

However, this crime will not go unpunished and
in time, justice will take its inevitable course.

The annihilation of Ležáky must be understood
within a broader framework of German occupation and the escalation of repression in 1942.

The Second World War, which had begun on 1 September 1939 with the German invasion of Poland,
expanded rapidly across Europe, bringing vast territories under Nazi control.

In March 1939,
the Czech and Moravian lands were occupied and reorganised into the Protectorate of Bohemia and
Moravia.

From the beginning, the Nazi occupation regime relied on a combination of administrative
control and systematic repression.

The Gestapo, German secret police, and other Nazi security
services monitored the population, suppressed political opposition, and targeted individuals
and groups considered hostile to German rule.

Jewish inhabitants were subjected to persecution,
deportation, and eventual extermination.

At the same time, the economy of the Protectorate was
integrated into the German war effort, with industry redirected toward military production
and labour strictly controlled by the Germans.

Despite these harsh conditions, resistance
activity developed across the territory.

One part of the resistance were agents, soldiers
from the Czechoslovak army in exile which was fighting for the independence of Czechoslovakia.

These agents were trained in Great Britain and sent back into occupied Europe.

From 1941
onwards, groups of agents were deployed into the Protectorate with specific tasks: to establish
contact with resistance at home, maintain communication with the government-in-exile in
London, and coordinate sabotage and terrorist operations.

Among these groups was ‘Silver A’,
which operated primarily in eastern Bohemia.

The effectiveness of such groups depended heavily
on communication.

The radio transmitter Libuše, operated by ‘Silver A’, became a crucial link
between the Protectorate and London.

Its presence allowed the resistance to transmit information
about German movements, industrial production, and political conditions, as well as to receive
instructions from abroad.

Maintaining this connection required secrecy, mobility, and
the cooperation of local civilians willing to risk their lives.

In the region around
the city of Pardubice, about 100 kilometres or 62 miles east of Prague, such support was
found among members of the resistance network, including individuals connected to the settlement
of Ležáky, home to around fifty people.

The situation changed dramatically on 27 May
1942, when Czechoslovak agents carried out the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the acting
Reich Protector and one of the central figures of the Nazi security system.

Heydrich had been
instrumental in consolidating German control over the Protectorate and in implementing policies of
repression and terror.

His death was a significant blow to the German administration, but it also
triggered an immediate and brutal response.

Thousands of people were arrested, interrogated,
and hundreds were executed.

Entire resistance networks were dismantled through a combination
of surveillance, informants, and torture.

On 10 June 1942, the village of Lidice
was destroyed in a highly publicised act of reprisal.

Although its inhabitants
had no connection to the assassination, the village was chosen as an
example.

The men were executed, the women deported to concentration camps, and
the children subjected to racial selection with many later murdered in gas vans in the Chełmno
extermination camp in German-occupied Poland.

The destruction of Lidice was intended to send
a clear message, but it did not end the search for those connected to the resistance.

A decisive turning point came on 16 June, when one of the Czechoslovak agents, Karel Čurda
voluntarily reported himself to the Gestapo in Prague.

In exchange for promises of clemency and
financial reward, he provided detailed information about resistance networks and contacts.

Among the
areas affected by his testimony was the Pardubice region, where the ‘Silver A’ group operated.

This betrayal allowed the German authorities to identify and arrest members of the local network.

On 20 June, the first arrests were carried out in the vicinity of Ležáky.

The manager of a nearby
quarry was taken into custody and a following day, the miller Jindřich Švanda, whose mill stood
close to the settlement, was arrested as well.

Both men were subjected to interrogation
and torture and under these conditions, the existence of the transmitter Libuše and its
location became known to the German security services.

The connection between the resistance
and Ležáky was established, and the decision to destroy the settlement followed quickly.

On 24 June 1942, in the early afternoon, German forces moved to carry out the operation.

150 men from the Pardubice company of the 20th Reserve Police Regiment “Böhmen”, acting under the
direction of the Gestapo, surrounded Ležáky.

To ensure that the cordon was complete, around 30
Czech gendarmes were deployed to form an outer ring.

The inhabitants of Ležáky were gathered
together, along with individuals who happened to be in the area at the time.

Even children
who were attending school in a nearby town were brought back under guard.

The operation was
methodical.

Names were checked, people counted, and no distinction was made between those directly
involved in resistance and those who were not.

The entire community was treated
as collectively responsible.

The detainees were transported to Pardubice to a
local villa which had become a central site for executions in the area.

On the evening of 24 June,
after nine o’clock, all thirty-three inhabitants of the village Ležáky older than fifteen, who
were in the village on that day, were shot.

Four other inhabitants were murdered by the Germans
a few days later.

At the same time, the physical destruction of Ležáky was carried out with
equal precision.

The houses were first looted, valuables removed, and then the buildings were set
on fire.

By late afternoon on the 24 June 1942, flames spread through the settlement, consuming
wooden structures and reducing them to ashes.

The mill, the houses, and all signs of daily
life disappeared within hours.

In the months that followed, even the ruins were removed.

By
the autumn of 1943, the site had been levelled, and the settlement ceased to exist not only
in reality but also in the physical landscape.

The fate of the children from Ležáky
followed the logic of Nazi racial policy.

After being transported from Pardubice
to Prague and then to a transit camp in Łódź in German-occupied Poland, they were
subjected to selection.

Two of the children were deemed suitable for Germanisation and
placed with German families.

The remaining eleven were handed over to the Gestapo
and murdered, most likely in gas vans at the Chełmno extermination camp – the
same way as kids from the Lidice village.

While the victims could never be brought back,
justice eventually caught up with those who had planned the destruction of the village and the
murder of its inhabitants.

Some paid for their crimes with their own lives even during the
Second World War, including Gerhard Clages, the Gestapo commander in Pardubice who
organized the destruction of Ležáky.

He died on 15 October 1944, during
the fighting in Budapest in Hungary.

A similar fate likely befell Hans-Ulrich
Geschke, who probably also died during the fighting in Budapest, although he was
not officially declared dead until 1959, and there are concerns that he may have managed
to change his identity and evade justice.

However, this certainly did not happen
after the war to those who were brought before Czechoslovak courts.

Such was the case of
Hubert Hanauske, a member of the Gestapo and the SS who actively participated in the persecution
of members of the ‘Silver A’ parachute unit and brutally interrogated residents of Ležáky.

On 10
December 1946, Hanauske was sentenced to death for his crimes against Czechoslovak citizens and
was executed on the same day.

Karl Hermann Frank, who orchestrated the terror against the
Czech population during the existence of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was
captured by American troops and extradited relatively quickly to Czechoslovakia, where
he was to be prosecuted for his crimes.

In front of the Czechoslovak court, he was found
guilty of war crimes and being responsible for the deaths of thousands of people in the protectorate.

Frank attempted to defend himself by claiming that his work was primarily for the welfare of
the German nation, that he was not driven by hatred toward the Czech people, but that
he had no knowledge of the true cruelty of the consequences of his decisions.

This was a
lie and on 21 May 1946, the verdict was handed down.

The reading of the judgment and its
reasoning lasted until the following day, and Karl Hermann Frank was sentenced to death
by hanging.

Three hours after the reading of the judgment’s reasoning was completed, and after all
requests for clemency had been rejected as Frank begged for his life despite crimes he committed
during the war, the execution took place on 22 May 1946 in the courtyard of Pankrác Prison
in Prague before the eyes of 5,000 citizens, including numerous journalists and photographers.

Kurt Daluege, the acting Reich Protector who succeeded Reinhard Heydrich and participated
in the terror that unfolded in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia after Heydrich’s death
also stood in front of the Czechoslovak court.

Throughout his trial, Daluege was unrepentant,
claiming he was only following Hitler’s orders, and had a clear conscience.

He was convicted
of all charges and sentenced to death on 23 October 1946.

Daluege was hanged in Pankrác
Prison on 24 October 1946.

Both of the former high-ranking Nazis were buried in an unmarked
grave at the Ďáblice cemetery in Prague.

In the years that followed, Ležáky was not
rebuilt.

Instead, the site was transformed into a place of memory.

Monuments were
erected to commemorate the victims, and the entire area was recognised
as a national cultural monument.

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