The Lidice Memorial had a record attendance last year, including Ležáky and Let

Lidice - The memorial sites managed by the Lidice Memorial were visited last year by a record number of people. The monuments commemorating the tyranny of Nazism in Lidice, Lety, and Ležáky were visited by over 190,000 people, which is a quarter more than the previous year. This was reported to ČTK by the director of the memorial, Martina Lehmannová.

Over 158,000 visitors came to Lidice last year, over 22,000 to Ležáky, and nearly 10,000 people visited Lety. "These numbers consist of the number of people who visited the memorial area for free and those who entered one of the exhibitions or the Lidice Memorial's exhibition with a ticket," the director stated. More than 11,000 foreign visitors also came to Lidice, with the most common being from Germany, followed by Austria, Russia, Great Britain, the United States, or Australia.

There was also great interest in the International Children's Art Exhibition Lidice, to which 25,690 children from a record 83 countries submitted their works last year. "All of them had to familiarize themselves with the message of Lidice, but of course we do not count them in the total attendance. The theme is chosen annually in collaboration with the Czech UNESCO Commission, and in 2017, children created works on the theme of travel," the director added. An international jury selected about 1,200 works that were exhibited. The exhibition is also presented abroad. Children may send their works for the current year’s competition, themed Water (above gold), until the end of February.

Last year, two new permanent exhibitions were added in Lidice. One of them is the exhibition at the Lidice Gallery titled Remember Lidice, which commemorates the tragedy of the village and which, according to the director, has been seen by over 7,000 people. The second exhibition was opened in the family house No. 116 and is called We Build New Lidice, reminding of the fate of the village after 1945.

At the end of last year, an exhibition by Martin Homola titled My Home - testimony of a portrait was also launched in Lidice, which presents portrait photographs of the witnesses of the Lidice and Ležáky tragedy until April. "In the faces of the survivors, we find tremendous life energy, which helped them overcome the hardships of totalitarian regimes, as well as perspective, forgiveness, and reconciliation, which are essential parts of life," Lehmannová added.

This year, investments are planned for the memorial in Ležáky, where restoration work on so-called grave houses - monuments at the sites of the destroyed houses in Ležáky - is to begin. The biggest change for 2018 is the transfer of the Lidice Memorial under the Museum of Romani Culture in Brno.