National Memorial to the Heroes of the Heydrich Terror

Nazi forces marched into Prague in 1939. By 1941, Reinhard Heydrich was running the show with a blood-soaked fist. The government-in-exile in London hit back with Operation Anthropoid. They sent Jan Kubiš and Josef Gabčík to take him out. On May 27, 1942, they did exactly that. The retaliation was swift and brutal. Entire villages were wiped out. The paratroopers hid in this crypt for three weeks. But betrayal found them. On June 18, 750 SS soldiers surrounded the church. The paratroopers fought until their last bullets. Then they took their own lives.

Anthropoid meant "human-like." It was a desperate, high-stakes gamble by the Czech government in London. Hitler had sent Reinhard Heydrich to crush the locals. They called him the "Butcher of Prague" for a reason. He was hanging the intelligentsia by the dozen. The British SOE picked the best men they had for the job. These soldiers trained in the rainy highlands of Scotland. They learned how to kill quietly and move like ghosts. Jan Kubiš and Josef Gabčík led the team. They parachuted into the dark in December 1941. For five months, they lived in the shadows of Prague. They watched Heydrich's every move. They waited for a single mistake.

Heydrich was arrogant. He drove to Prague Castle in an open-top Mercedes without any guards. On May 27, 1942, his routine killed him. He had to slow down for a sharp hairpin turn in Kobylisy. That was the spot. Gabčík stepped out with a Sten gun. It jammed. Heydrich didn't run. He told his driver to stop so he could shoot back. That's when Kubiš threw the grenade. It ripped through the car and sent shrapnel into Heydrich's side. The paratroopers vanished into the city on bicycles. Heydrich died in Bulovka Hospital eight days later from an infection. It remains one of the most successful hits on a top Nazi official in history.

The Gestapo turned Prague upside down. But the Orthodox Church showed incredible guts. They offered the paratroopers a hole to hide in. The men moved into the freezing crypt under the cathedral on Resslova. They spent three weeks in the dark. It was damp and miserable. They were waiting for the heat to die down. But the Nazi bounty was too high for some. Karel Čurda, one of their own, cracked. He sold out the families who were helping the team. Under torture, those families gave up the location of the crypt. The end was coming.

June 18, 1942. At dawn, 750 SS troops swarmed the church. Three paratroopers died fighting in the choir loft. Then the Nazis turned on the crypt. They couldn't get in through the stairs without getting shot. So they called the fire department. They pumped water and tear gas through the small street-level window. The paratroopers tried to dig through the wall to the sewers, but the water rose too fast. They weren't going to be taken alive. "We will not surrender," they shouted. They used their last bullets on themselves. The Nazis later executed Bishop Gorazd for helping them. He's a martyr now.