Oldgreytravel prefers his monuments to be modest and understated. The overly triumphant, the baroque and the grandiose seem to be saying something else, something about the victors rather than the victims. They seem to strike the wrong note. Rachel Whiteread’s Jewish memorial in Vienna hits the right note, a simple cube, each side depicting lines of books, a sealed library in effect and a metaphor for thousands of silenced voices. Or the replacing of cobbles in the street with brass plaques naming those taken away from adjacent buildings, originally a guerrilla operation unsanctioned by authority and more recently adopted as a formal act of remembrance. However, while in Prague recently, I came across one of the most modest, and moving, memorials I have encountered. A simple and tiny bouquet of paper flowers in the Czech colours on a ledge below a narrow cellar window. Oh, and those bullet holes and shrapnel damage are real.
The story starts with the German annexation of Czechosolvakia in March 1939. Some Czechoslovak soldiers could not accept the occupation and left the country, finally ending up in the French Foreign Legion. With the declaration of war in September 1939, they were released from their obligation to the Legion and formed their own infantry division based in Agde on the Mediterranean coast. With the invasion of France, they were dispatched to the front only to fall back under the German onslaught. After France’s capitulation, they fell back to the Mediterranean coast where British ships took some 5000 men back to England.
With the formation of the SOE in response to Churchill’s command to “set Europe ablaze”, a number of Czech volunteers were trained for work behind enemy lines. Meanwhile, in Czechoslovakia, Richard Heydrich, a fanatical and brutal Nazi, had been appointed Reich Protector and initiated a reign of terror. The Czechoslovak government in exile felt the need for a bold statement of resistance. The fledgling resistance movement at home had been decimated by Heydrich’s terror and it was considered important that the Allies understood that the Czechs were not compliant subjects of the Nazis. Slovakia had already become a puppet state allied with the Axis Powers. The decision was taken to assassinate Heydrich.
After much deliberation and false attempts, several groups of parachutists in civilian clothes were dropped around Prague. Their mission was to re-establish contact with the resistance and, specifically, to plan the assassination of Heydrich. In May 1942, Heydrich, riding in his open limouisine, was attacked by two paratroopers. He died later of his wounds. The two assassins escaped and were hidden, along with five other paratroopers, in a pre-arranged hiding place in the Orthodox Church of Cyril and Methodius, right in the centre of Prague. Here, they remained safely hidden for several weeks.
The Nazi reaction to the assassination was furious. Retaliation was brutal and shocking with over 2000 people executed, many more deported to camps and the destruction of two whole villages. Brutal interrogation and torture was used to extract information. For some reason, and it is difficult to understand (but possibly to prevent further atrocities) one of the paratroopers working with the resistance voluntarily handed himself over to the Gestapo and provided the names of resistance helpers. Subsequent arrests and brutal interrogation soon revealed the paratrooper’s hiding place.
In the early hours of 18 June, the Germans stormed the church. They met fierce resistance from the paratroopers firing from the loft into the body of the church and were held at bay for two hours until, with ammunition exhausted, the defenders committed suicide rather than be captured. Realizing that there had to be more defenders in the church than the three dead, the Germans turned their attention to the burial crypt. Here, four paratroopers were cornered and put up a desperate defence. Unable to force their way into the cellar, the Germans resorted to throwing grenades and tear gas through the narrow window to the cellar and even attempted to flood the crypt. Eventually, given the desperate situation and their shortage of ammunition, the four paratroopers committed suicide by shooting themselves.
Some two months later, Britain derecognized the Munich Agreement and acknowledged Czechoslovakia’s pre-Munich borders in any post war nation.
Today, the crypt is a museum dedicated to the memory of the seven paratroopers and the struggle for Czechoslovak recognition and independence. The tiny window through which they were attacked is the only external manifestation of the crypt and an appropriate location for this most humble of memorials to some extraordinary men.
The Heydrich Terror Memorial is located in the crypt of the Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Central Prague. It honours the seven paratroopers and provides information about the Heydrich assassination and other lives lost during the Nazi occupation. Entrance is free.
