Jiří Pitín

Prepared by the Witnesses of War team

Jiří Pitín was born on 23 April 1942 in Kladno, then occupied Czechoslovakia, into a family living in Lidice. He was only seven weeks old when German forces destroyed the village on 10 June 1942, during the Nazi reprisals following the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. He became one of the 17 Lidice children who survived the war.

Taken with his mother, Blažena, to the secondary-school building in Kladno, Jiří was subsequently separated from her. As an infant under one year old, he was sent to institutions in Prague, first at Karlov, then in Resslova Street, and finally to a German children’s home in Krč, where he remained until liberation.

His immediate family was murdered. His father, František, initially escaped but was captured and executed at Prague-Kobylisy on 16 June 1942. His ten-year-old sister, Marie, was murdered at the Chełmno extermination camp. His mother died in Ravensbrück in December 1944, his grandmother in Auschwitz, and his uncle Josef was among the men shot in Lidice.

After the war, his maternal aunt, Marie Kvasničková, took him into her care. He later lived in the rebuilt Lidice, trained as an electrician, and studied history for several semesters at Charles University. Through school talks and cooperation with the Lidice Memorial, he has helped preserve the memory of the village and its murdered inhabitants.