The Memorial To The Children Victims Of The War, Lidice, Czech Republic

Two men from Lidice were in the United Kingdom serving in the Royal Air Force at the time of the massacre. After 1945 Pilot Officer Josef Horák and Flight Lieutenant Josef Stříbrný returned to Czechoslovakia to serve in the Czechoslovak Air Force. However, after the Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948 the new Communist government would not allow them to apply to be housed in the new Lidice because they had served in the forces of one of the western powers. Horák and his family returned to Britain and the RAF; he died in a flying accident in December 1948.