Josef Valčík


Josef Valčík was a Czechoslovak British-trained soldier and member of the Resistance in German-occupied Czechoslovakia who took part in the firefight during the aftermath of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich by Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš, code named Operation Anthropoid.

Operation Anthropoid

-Obergruppenführer Heydrich, a high-ranking German Nazi official, was chief of the Reich Main Security Office and one of the main architects of the Holocaust. He was also Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia in 1942.
The Germans were unable to locate the attackers until Karel Čurda of the "Out Distance" sabotage group turned himself in to the Gestapo and gave them the names of the team's local contacts for the reward of one million Reichsmarks. Valčík and the others died after a six-hour firefight with Waffen-SS troops and German police in the Saints Cyril and Methodius Cathedral.

Family

14 members of Valčík's family were arrested, brought to Mauthausen concentration camp and executed.