Date: June 16, 2016, at 6 pm       

Location: Embassy of the Czech Republic             
3900 Spring of Freedom Street, NW        
Washington, DC 20008

RSVP by June 14 to www.heydrich.eventbrite.com       

Light refreshments will be served.             

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

The exhibition Reinhard Heydrich Assassination – The Death of the Holocaust Architect was created in commemoration of the 74th anniversary of the operation organized by the Czechoslovakia anti-Nazi resistance movement and carried out through operation ANTHROPOID by paratroopers Jan Kubiš and Josef Gabčík on May 27, 1942.

This act resulted in the death and elimination of one of the most fanatic Nazis, Reinhard Heydrich, also known as one of the major holocaust idea bearers. This operation represents a significant event not only for 20th century Czech history but also for WWII.  As revenge for the assassination, the Nazis burned the villages of Lidice and Ležáky and murdered thousands of Czechs who took part in the anti-Nazi resistance movement.            

The exhibition, mainly focused on the war period 1939–1945, is composed of 15 panels describing the situation in the fall of 1941, when Heydrich arrived in Prague, until his assassination in May 1942. The panels show the assassination preparation and its execution by the members of the Czechoslovakian units abroad and the retaliations coming from the Germans for the Czech nation after Heydrich’s death. A very significant part of the display is dedicated to Heydrich’s plans, also known as the final solution of the Jewish question that he had been working on since 1939.     

The display also introduces broader relationships between the Czech and Jewish nations, mainly in the 20th century beginning from time of Czechoslovak President Masaryk. Besides the text and photo documents, there will also be some replicas directly connected to the assassination on display, e.g. parts of parachutes, uniforms and personal belongings of the soldiers who committed the assassination.           

The exhibition has been put together by curators from the Military History Institute Prague that belongs to the most significant military history institutions in the Czech Republic, whose tradition dates back to the 1920s.