Phonograph record

Recording of the narrative poem, The Murder of Lidice, written by Edna St. Vincent Millay, read by Basil Rathbone, and Blanche Yurka, with an unidentified chorus. Millay (1923- 1950) was one of the most successful and honored poets in America. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the subsequent entry of the US into World War II on December 8, 1941, Millay, a dedicated pacifist, began writing propaganda for the Writers' War Board. She wrote the ballad, Murder of Lidice, in 1942 in response to the Nazi-led annihilation and destruction of the village of Lidice in German occupied Czechoslovakia on June 10, 1942. The attack was a retaliatory measure for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, Acting Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, by Czech resistance members. A hand grenade exploded under Heydrich's vehicle on May 27, 1942, and he died of his injuries on June 4. The German reprisal was brutal. More than 3000 Czech citizens were arrested, with over half killed, and the entire village of Lidice was decimated.