The competition for new management of the Lidice Memorial will be announced by the Ministry of Culture on Tuesday

Lidice - The Ministry of Culture will announce a selection procedure for a new director of the Lidice Memorial, according to the head of the ministry, Lubomír Zaorálek (CSSD), on Tuesday. The former director, Martina Lehmannová, resigned last week due to a dispute with Lidice survivors. The name of the selected candidate should be known by the end of February at the latest. According to the minister, it is not about gathering facts and arriving at a definitive truth during the meeting. "This is about restoring relationships," Zaorálek said today to reporters after meeting with both survivors and representatives of the memorial in Lidice.

According to Lehmannová, the employees of the memorial had always held all Lidice survivors in the deepest respect. "I must say that we at the Lidice Memorial never fought any battles," she added, stating that today’s meeting was good in that both sides had the opportunity to express their views and share their positions.

Some individuals who survived the extermination of Lidice accused the director last year of distorting facts. This was a reaction to a television report about an alleged denunciation by a Lidice resident who reported her Jewish tenant to the police. Lehmannová denied the accusations.

According to Zaorálek, the management of the memorial must be able to communicate with all survivors. "I cannot imagine that there would be a dispute with survivors somewhere in Auschwitz," he added, stating that communication with survivors requires great consideration and sensitivity.

Employees of the memorial supported Lehmannová and warned in a statement against the political misuse of the Lidice Memorial and the denial of scientific principles. The last living woman from Lidice, Jaroslava Skleničková, also defended the now-former director. Lehmannová remains an employee of the memorial for now; some employees are considering resigning.

The Lidice Memorial commemorates the Nazi extermination of the village of Lidice on June 10, 1942. The pretext was the alleged connection of the village with the assassination of the Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich; out of approximately 500 inhabitants of Lidice, 160 survived the war. On June 10, 1942, 173 Lidice men were shot, and subsequently, on June 16, 1942, another 26 Lidice residents were shot in Prague-Kobylisy. 53 Lidice women did not survive their time in concentration camps. 82 children from Lidice were suffocated in a gas van in a deportation camp. After liberation, 143 Lidice women and 17 children gradually returned to Lidice.

Jewish woman Štěpánka Mikešová, who lived as a tenant with one of the Lidice families, was deported to Auschwitz at the beginning of June 1942, where she died.