The Children´s War Victims Monument, War memorial in Lidice, Czech Republic

The Children's War Victims Monument consists of 82 bronze statues depicting 42 girls and 40 boys who died during the Lidice massacre of 1942. The figures are arranged in a meadow, creating a space where the individual identities of these children remain present and visible.

The memorial was created in response to the destruction of the village of Lidice during World War II, after German occupation forces carried out reprisals for the assassination of a high-ranking Nazi official. The sculptor Marie Uchytilová began her work on the project in the decades following the war.

The sculptor Marie Uchytilová met surviving mothers and studied photographs of the children before modelling the figures, yet shaped them so they are not fully recognizable. The bronze group was installed in stages: the first 30 statues in 1995, the last seven in 2000.

The memorial sits in open grassland roughly 20 kilometers northwest of Prague and is accessible year-round. There is minimal infrastructure at the site, so visitors should allow time to walk among the statues and come prepared for outdoor conditions.

The casting of the bronze figures took place over decades, with the artist's husband completing the work after her death in 1989. This extended timeline means the memorial became a multi-generational project that kept the memory alive through continuous artistic effort.