Soldiers, politicians commemorate Heydrich's assassins
Otto Mann
ČTK | 19 June 2009
Prague, June 18 (CTK) - Representatives of the Czech military and
politicians Thursday attended a ceremony commemorating British-trained
Czechoslovak parachutists who killed the Nazi governor of Bohemia and
Moravia, Reinhardt Heydrich, on May 27, 1942.
The commemorative ceremony was held outside the Church of Cyril and
Methodius in Prague's Resslova street where the paratroopers were
hiding after the assassination attempt 67 years ago.
Hundreds of SS and Gestapo units surrounded the building. For six
hours, they tried unsuccessfully to force their way into the crypt,
using grenades and tear gas.
But the parachutists never surrendered, choosing instead to take their
own lives.
Thursday's commemorative ceremony was attended by Interior Minister
Martin Pecina and Chamber of Deputies chairman Miloslav Vlcek.
Marshal Jock Stirrup, British chief of staff, who ends his three-day
official visit to the Czech Republic, also appeared at the ceremony,
accompanied by his Czech counterpart Vlastimil Picek.
After a flower-laying ceremony a mass for the victims of the
Heydrich's rule was celebrated.
The paratroopers, members of the Anthropoid operation trained in
Britain, attacked and fatally wounded Heydrich, acting Reichsprotector
of Bohemia and Moravia, on May 27, 1942, and on June 4 he succumbed to
the injuries he suffered in the paratroopers' attack.
As a senior Nazi officer Heydrich supervised mass deportations of Jews
from Germany and former Czechoslovakia to the Lodz (Litzmannstadt)
Ghetto in Poland.
In September 1941 he was appointed acting Reichsprotector of Bohemia
and Moravia in order to quell the anti-Nazi resistance in the
Protectorate.
On 20 January 1942 Heydrich chaired the Wannsee Conference, at which
he presented a plan for the deportation and transporting of 11 million
Jewish people from European countries who were to be killed or worked
to death in the East.
The paratroopers from the Anthropoid unit, including Jan Kubis, Jozef
Gabcik and Jozef Valcik, who directly participated in Heydrich's
assassination, were sent to help Czech resistance movement from London
and to kill Heydrich.
After Heydrich's assassination they were hiding for three weeks but
eventually they were betrayed by one of them and died in a fight with
the German police.