"Anthropoid" film tour commemorates Czechoslovak WWII resistance fighters

On this day in 1942, Czechoslovak paratroopers Jan Kubiš and Jozef Gabčík carried out a plot to assassinate high-ranking Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich as he drove from his villa in Panenské Břežany to Prague Castle.

Heydrich’s subsequent death as a result of his injuries irrevocably shaped the events of WWII and the fate of the Czechoslovak nation, while the story of the heroic resistance fighters, who would later die in a shootout in Prague’s Saints Cyril and Methodius Cathedral, have captured the public imagination for years.

That film and the Prague locations featured in it are now the focus of a unique tour being offered by Prague’s Naked Tour Guide.

Not just for tourists, local WWII buffs who attend the private screening and walking tour are sure to get their fill of interesting insights on a critical moment in world history, says tour guide Marcus Bradshaw.

“We have the whole [Kino Aero] cinema to ourselves, so it is very immersive. Once the movie is over, we have a Q&A where we discuss the movie, its accuracies, and inaccuracies and separate history from Hollywood. We cover the establishment of Czechoslovakia, the Sudeten Crisis and the Munich Agreement, and give some context to the pressures faced by Beneš’ government-in-exile.”

The tour visits the street where two of the resistance hideouts were located, the memorials, the former Gestapo HQ, the Heydrich Terror Museum, and, finally, the church on Resslova where the resistance fighters died.

“It is particularly powerful to stand in the church an hour after seeing it on the big screen,” says Bradshaw.