Staff Sergeants Jan Kubiš and Josef Gabcík in London in December 1941 before their flight on Operation ANTHROPOID tasked with the assassination of the Acting Reich´s Protector Reinhard Heydrich, Head of RSHA, the harsh and merciless Butcher of Prague, whose terror tactics in the Protectorate claimed the lives of hundreds of Czech patriots. They fulfilled their mission on 27 May 1942 when they mortally wounded Heydrich at Kobylisy, Prague. Hell´s gates opened; many were killed during the search for the parachutists. On 10 June 1942 the village of Lidice was burned to the ground as a warning to Czechoslovak resistance – men were murdered; women and children were dragged to concentration camps; the youngest ones were sent for re-education to the Reich. On 24 June, similar atrocities were committed in the village of Ležáky in the Chrudimsko District. However, these were merely the tips of an iceberg. Yet, the assassination was a clear signal to the world at war that Czechs did not reconcile themselves to the reality of the Protectorate. Thus, it promoted the efforts of Czechoslovak resistance abroad to have the Munich Diktat and consequent developments declared null and void.
