English Translation

9 INTRODUCTION Although the occupation of the rest of Czechoslovakia and the emergence of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in 1939 had taken place for three quarters of a century, this topic is still alive, it causes emotion and interest of researchers. The Czech nation has passed this difficult test, but to draw knowledge from this historical experience, it is necessary to keep in mind the depth of the Nazi evil that has made the crime a banality. "I'm going to Auschwitz, I'm kissing. Your Heini.", writes Himmler to his wife before his journey to the factory to die.(1) Crime has been promoted to state politics and official machinery has been transformed into an instrument of annihilation of entire nations.(2) It is therefore impossible to agree with those voices that relativize Nazi evil and claim that "those who killed no monsters in Lidice were not, they were only residents of other Lidics" (3) because "the Gauners and the good people were both among Germans and among the Czechs" and they need to be viewed "by the memory of their own responsibilities." (4) The responsibility of the Nazi regime for his crimes would be so disbanded and shifted "only" to individuals-gaunars. With such simplifications, not only can the causes of the emergence and expansion of Nazism not only be captured, but also to defend itself effectively against his neo-Nazi relapses. "Germany is aware of its historical responsibility. Therefore, the highest commandment of all political negotiations must be to prevent the repetition of war and terror," said German President Joachim Gauck on the 70th anniversary of the extermination of Lidice and Ležáky. (5) There is still a long way to go... ...for example, Germany has not, on a flat-rate basis, abolished the judgments of the Nazi courts over the murdered and tortured Czech patriots. (6) With the relativization of the crimes of Nazism goes hand in hand and comparison of the incomparable, when war crimes and genocide of entire nations are placed on the one hand, on the other hand, the criminal acts of individuals committed in post-war retaliation. The sum of all the postwar undefensible and good-for-nothing acts that have taken place in our territory cannot by far compensate for what has been happening in concentration camps every hour in previous years, in prisons,