On a small street, less than 5 minutes walk from the river in Prague is small church, one of the hundreds that seem to be dotted about the city - and it is one of the less impressive ones but it was the scene of the culmination of one of the most incredible stories of bravery of WWII.
In 1942, Operation Anthropoid was put into operation - the idea being to assasinate Reinhard Heydrich, at the time, the 3rd most powerful main in the Third Reich - and someone seen as a potential successor to Hitler. He was also the 'Protector' of Bohemia-Moravia (Czechoslovakia) and more importantly, the author of the Final Solution - the programme to clear Europe of the Jewish race. Arguably, one of the most evil and notorious men in a regime known to be crammed full of evil and notorious men, he was also known as the 'Butcher of Prague' and his cruelty would appear to have not been limited by any moral or philosophical boundaries
In May 1942, 2 Czech agents of the SOE, parachuted into occupied Czechoslovakia, along with 6 other agents, 1 of whom would turn betrayer for the sum of 1 million Reichsmarks and a new identity, with the plan to assasinate Heydrich as he drove to work one morning.
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Ultimately, their operation did not go to plan and they were forced to abandon their previous escape route and take refuge in the church, with 5 of the other operatives, where they were eventually surrounded and took shelter in the crypt (not before 3 of the party had taken poison and committed suicide). After several days of unrelenting attack with bullets, explosives and even an attempt to flood them out by the occuping forces, the remaining 4 men killed themselves - but not before they had managed to succeed in the overall mission as Heydrich died of blood poisoning following complications in surgey to remove shrapnel caused by the SOE attack.
Jan Kubis and Jozef Gabcik were certainly brave men - they escaped from Czechoslavkia after the invasion in 1939, joined the French Foreign Legion, fought in the fall of France in 1940 where they were both decorated for their bravery and then escaped to England and joined the Free Czech forces - where they were selected for the SOE with the brief to set Europe alight.
The assasination of Heydrich led to some incredibly brutal acts of reprisal from the Nazis, including the total destruction of Lidice, where, as in Oradour-sur-Glane in France, the Nazis liquidated a complete village of around 500 inhabitants, men, women and children - all told, historians estimate that around 5,000 people were murdered in repsonse to the assasination of Heydrich.
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As for the man, Karel Curda, who accepted his 30 pieces of silver to betray them, he married a German woman, was given a new identity, worked for the Gestapo and despite it all, was caught, tried and executed for treason in 1947 - I would love to say that he was severaly tortured and divulged his secrets under extreme duress and so was forced to turn traitor but there is no evidence to suggets that he did - it was a decision motivated by greed and money - and this was man who had trained and prepared for the mission with the 7 men he betrayed!
It is possible to visit the crypt of the church where the men took shelter and it has been turned into a small musuem detailing the story of the operation and its aftermath - it is possible to see the last efforts of desperate men as they attempted to tunnel through the crypt wall and into the sewer network as a means of escape but unfortunately, it was all too late for them as the cellar was being flooded
I remember watching a film called 'Operation Daybreak', starring Anthony Andrews and Martin Shaw about this event and beign so sad at the event of it as there was no happy ending but it is even sadder to see where it all took place and to know that there was no way out for the men who took up the challenge and did ultimately sacrifice themselves - but I suspect that the human cost of the war in Central and Eastern Europe would have been a lot higher if Heydrich had been allowed to live, purely given his racial policies and implementation of some abhorant practices
Like most tourists in Moscow, Red Square was very high on the agenda, however, unlike most tourists, we figured that being there at 2am was a good idea - especially when it was -12 at least
