A FILM looking back on a shocking Second World War event will be premiered in the Swansea Valley later this month.

The film – called Lidice: The Village that Refused to Die – was partially filmed in Cwmgiedd, just outside Ystradgynlais, and immortalises a Czechoslovakia village that was obliterated during the Second World War.

Lidice was a mining village just like Cwmgiedd, and in 1941, during the height of the war, Free Czechoslovak agents assassinated SS Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi boss of occupied Czechoslovakia, and a protégé of Adolf Hitler.

In retaliation, Hitler rounded up 4,000 Jews and killed them, as well as killing all 199 men and boys over the age of 16 in the village of Lidice. They transported the village’s 207 women to concentration camps, with 87 children gassed in specially adapted lorries.

Eight of the village’s children were allowed to survive due to their fair hair and blue eyes and were given to German families to be raised as Aryan Nazis. Hitler declared that the name of Lidice would be obliterated from the face of the earth.

However, this has not happened, as the film shows children in Cwmgiedd who remember Lidice each year through poetry and song.

Also featured are people in Swindon including Win, the widow of a Lidice family, the Horaks who were suspected of being involved in the plot to blow up Heydrich’s car, as well as the Nazi’s footage of destruction of Lidice, as well as a photograph of the film crew who recorded the footage.

The film also embraces British propaganda film Silent Village which was directed by Humphrey Jennings and follows the village of Cwmgiedd being turned into Lidice and annihilated by the SS as a warning to the British for what would happen if the Nazis invaded the UK during the war. The film was made as a tribute to the brotherhood of man and of miners.

Not only is Lidice remembered by people 80 years on, but the town itself refused to die as it was rebuilt on the hillside, overlooking the valley where the original village once stood.

Lidice: The Village That Refused to Die was written, produced and directed by Peter Williams. The film has already won an award for its strong message at the international IMPACT Festival and from the IndieFEST film festival in three categories: Documentary Feature, History/Biographical and Mr Williams in the Award of Excellence category.

Lidice: The Village That Refused to Die will be premiered at The Welfare, Ystradgynlais on Thursday, September 28 at 7pm, before being shown at the Temple of Peace, Cardiff on Sunday, October 1 at 5.30pm.

Profits from the film will be donated to Lidice Shall Live and the Joseph Herman Foundation Cymru.