Czech pride in Jan Kubis, killer of Reinhard Heydrich

[Gerald]

People in the Czech Republic are marking the seventieth anniversary of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, one of the most senior figures in Germany's Third Reich.

Heydrich - the overall head of security in Nazi Germany and a leading architect of the Final Solution - was killed by British-trained Czechoslovak parachutists in what was codenamed Operation Anthropoid, prompting terrible reprisals by Hitler.

Alois Denemarek was one of the last people to see Heydrich's assassin alive.

It was early June, 1942, and Mr Denemarek had travelled from his home village in Moravia to Prague. There, in a small park by the National Museum, he met his boyhood friend Jan Kubis. Several days previously, Kubis and fellow parachutists Jozef Gabcik and Josef Valcik had carried out one of the most audacious attacks of World War Two.

In broad daylight, they had mortally wounded SS Obergruppenfuehrer Reinhard Heydrich, the acting Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia, as he was heading to Berlin for a meeting with Hitler.

Heydrich was known for his extraordinary brutality - even by Nazi standards. Hitler was beside himself with rage. The Nazis launched a massive manhunt.

"I remember what Jan said to me when I met him," Mr Denemarek, now 94, told the BBC from his home in South Moravia.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18183099

Note: 26 May 2012 Last updated at 23:44 GMT