Jan Kubis, second lead member of the "Operation Anthropoid" parachutist team sent to assasinate Heydrich.  JR.

Death in Prague (3)

In a remarkably short time, Heydrich's direct attention resulted in the beheading of the Czech resistance in Bohemia/Moravia.  There were still resistants but, without effective leadership, they could not act effectively.  Anxious to maintain the profile of Czech resistance for political reasons, the Czechoslovak government-in-exile in London stepped up the practice of having British-trained parachutists dropped into the Czech lands to carry out a variety of what often amounted to suicide missions.  A particularly spectacular mission was "Operation Anthropoid", which aimed at the assasination of Reinhard Heidrich.  The two lead members of "Anthropoid" were the Slovak Josef Gabcik (photograph above) and his Czech colleague, Jan Kubis.  JR.

Death in Prague (2)

Removing the village of Lidice from the map (albeit, as it turned out, temporarily) did nothing to catch the assasins of Heydrich.  They had their own problems.  The "Anthropoid" plan does not seem to have paid much attention to possible escape plans.  The parachutists could probably have left Prague simply by catching a train in the initial confusion following the attack, but did not.  The fact that none of them knew the city of Prague (a deliberate security measure by Czech intelligence) may have contributed to this choice.  Instead, they went to ground with a number of reliable contacts among the disorganised Czech underground.  This meant staying in family apartments - a highly risky situation.  As a result, the underground operatives decided to concentrate the parachutists in their care in a single place of (hoped for) safety - that turned out to be the crypt of the Eastern Orthodox Cathedral Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius (formerly a Roman Catholic church dedicated to St Charles Borromeo).  Best regards, JR.