This week Prague marks the 82nd anniversary of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich and the massacres which followed.

I took these photos on a visit to the site a couple of years ago.

On May 27, 1942, Heydrich’s car joined this road turning sharply to follow the main route towards the city centre.

But the SOE-trained team of Operation Anthropoid (both Czechs and Slovaks) were waiting to attack as the car slowed for the corner.

Josef Gabčik’s gun jammed, but Jan Kubiš threw a bomb which left Heydrich fatally wounded.

‘The Man with the Iron Heart’ died on June 4 in the hospital which is across the road from the ambush site.

Nazi reprisals for the death of one of the main architects of the Holocaust included the destruction of the towns of Lidice and Ležáky. More than 1,300 people – men, women and children – were killed.

The assassination team was betrayed and traced to Saints Cyril and Methodius Cathedral which became the scene of a massive gun battle on June 18.

Three died in the nave; the other four killed themselves as the crypt, in which they had taken refuge, was being flooded with water.

The cathedral’s priests were executed, as was the local bishop, who had offered the Germans his life in the place of the others. He was later canonized by the Czech Orthodox Church.

A terrible price, then. Impossible to say whether the assassination was worth all that followed. Can be argued either way – and always will be.

But when I visited the ambush site I got talking to four Czech students who were making their first pilgrimage to the site. We talked about why we were there, and the courage of those who had taken part in the attack and of the many families who had helped them.

The Czech government-in-exile had wished to do something that would be remembered as its country’s courageous stand against Nazi oppression. Anthropoid – and those young people at the ambush site 80 years later – are a testament to that…

*If you wish to visit the ambush site (Městský okruh 43) it is a tram 3 and 10 ride from the city centre. And then a short walk. It’s then easy to take the same service back to Karlovo námĕstí which is around the corner from the cathedral on Resslova.