Updates: 27.05.2022 00:05
Released: 27.05.2022, 00:05

Prague – The Czechia today commemorates the 80th anniversary of the assassination of the deputy imperial protector Reinhard Heydrich, the most powerful man of the then Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and one of the co-creators of the Holocaust. In the morning, a reconstruction of the attack will take place in Liben, Prague, which was carried out on June 27, 1942 with the help of a domestic resistance by two paratroopers sent from Britain – the Czech Jan Kubiš and the Slovak Jozef Gabčík. In the evening, a ceremonial assembly is held at the National Museum, during which an exhibition on Operation Anthropoid will be opened with the participation of President Miloš Zeman and Slovak Head of State Zuzana Čaputová.

This year, for the first time, the Czech Republic commemorates the anniversary of the assassination as an official significant day marked as the Day of National Defiance. The commemorative events will be a celebration of the heroic deeds of both Czechoslovak soldiers and their comrades-in-arms, the bravery of many people who helped them in the protectorate, and the victims of the subsequent hard retribution of the Nazis immediately after the assassination. Extensive repression, a wave of arrests and executions culminated in the burning of Lidice and Ležáky. Kubiš, Gabčík and five other paratroopers died on June 18 after a fierce battle with the superiority in the Orthodox Church of Cyril and Methodius in Resslova Street.

An all-day program is prepared in Liben, Prague, above the bend at the Anthropoid memorial, and some of them will also be attended by the British Foreign Ministry Liz Trussová or the Slovak Minister of Defense Jaroslav Naď. It begins with a morning flight of a historic World War II Hurricane aircraft. After 10:30, the reconstruction of the attack on the car carrying Heydrich will begin. Although Gabčík failed the submachine gun at the decisive moment, Kubiš managed to detonate a grenade, which seriously injured Heydrich. The deputy imperial protector died on June 4 of blood poisoning.

After the reconstruction, three Mi-24 combat helicopters will fly over Libní. This will be followed by a memorial service at the memorial, a parade of soldiers and civilians in period clothing, and a ride of historic vehicles. In the afternoon and on Saturday, the program will continue in the Thomayer Gardens at the Great Löwit Mill.

A ceremonial assembly will be held in the historical building of the National Museum from 18:00, which will also be attended by Čaputová and Zeman. During the event, the exhibition We Will Never Give Up !, opened jointly by the National Museum and the Military History Institute, will open. It refers to the last words of paratroopers surrounded in the crypt of the Orthodox Church. “We are Czechs! We will never give up, do you hear? Never!” The exhibition will present the fates of not only assassins, but also other personalities of the resistance and public life. During her visit to Prague, Čaputová will honor the memory of Czechoslovak soldiers and victims of the Heydrichiad at the memorial plaques in Resslova Street and visits to the exhibition on the assassination in Žižkov’s Ohrada Park.

Events commemorating the assassination of Heydrich have taken place in a number of parts of the country since the end of last year, when three groups of paratroopers were deployed from Britain 80 years ago in occupied territory. Operations Anthropoid, Silver A and Silver B were to help the domestic resistance connect with London and carry out the liquidation of Heydrich. Today, a memorial service is being held in Rokycany near the house of the railwayman Václav Stehlík, whose family was murdered on May 28, 1942 for hiding members of the Anthropoid group. Several exhibitions will be open, and memorial and reverence meetings will take place today and in the days to come. The radio reconstruction of 80-year-old events will be broadcast live by Radiožurnál from 08:00 to 12:00.

After the assassination of Heydrich, described as the greatest act of European domestic resistance during World War II, France and Britain revoked their signatures under the Munich Agreement, which contributed to the border of the re-establishment of post-war Czechoslovakia in the pre-Munich ones.

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