Art: New Colossus

Lidice, Czechoslovakia, is now a wheat field dotted with red poppies. People from the neighboring villages have cleared a 25-foot-square plot in the center of the field, and erected a small crucifix marked “Here Lie the Bodies of Lidice’s Victims. Murdered June 10, 1942 by the German Invaders.”

This week Manhattan’s “Lidice Memorial Committee” announced plans for a grander ($1,500,000) monument: an “open cathedral.” Details:

“The world shrine, a gigantean granite Altar to Freedom, will rise 250 feet. . . . Each column of the vast colonnade . . . will commemorate a martyr of Lidice. Outside . . . fountains of crystal water will play. And under the floor of the great court will be many chapels, each dedicated to one of the religions of the world.”

Said the Committee: “It is a giant creation to dwarf the Colossus at Rhodes. It will stand, like the pyramids, to challenge the minds and hearts of men for countless ages.”