§ 36:1-10 — Legislative findings and declaration

The Legislature finds and declares: a. That the tenth day of June marks the anniversary of one of the most heinous criminal acts in the history of Western civilization, the brutal extermination of the peaceful village of Lidice, Czechoslovakia by the barbaric members of the Nazi security police on June 10, 1942. b. On that dark day in 1942 every male resident of Lidice over the age of 16 was murdered; all of the women were condemned to the dreaded Ravensbrueck concentration camp; four pregnant women were taken to a maternity hospital where their newly born children were murdered; and all of the surviving children of Lidice were sent outside of Czechoslovakia and dispersed. c. After the people of Lidice had been so thoroughly savaged, the Nazi security police turned their perverted fury on the village itself, first burning it, then dynamiting the ruins, and finally leveling the site of the village to the ground. d. This barbarous act of depravity so aroused the wrath of the world, that towns and villages in many countries renamed themselves Lidice so that the memory of that peaceful little village might be preserved. e. It is the firm belief of this Legislature that the memory of the hideous outrage that was committed against Lidice must not be allowed to fade, lest a similar fate befall other communities. L.1983, c. 210, s. 1, eff. June 10, 1983.