At 4:30 p.m. this declaration is read out on German radio. From 5:00, Czech radio begins to broadcast it every thirty minutes; from 7:40, every ten minutes; and from 8:20 until 9:00, every five minutes. I suppose anyone who lived through this day in Prague—if they are still alive—would be able to recite the entire text by heart. At 9:30 the state of emergency is extended throughout the Protectorate. Meanwhile, Himmler has called Frank to confirm Hitler’s new orders: the hundred most important people imprisoned as hostages since Heydrich’s arrival the previous October are to be executed.
In the hospital, they are emptying the cupboards of all the morphine they can find for the relief of their most important patient.
That evening, an insane raid is organized. The city is invaded by 4,500 men from the SS, the SD, the NSKK, the Gestapo, the Kripo, and other Schupos, plus three Wehrmacht battalions. Add to this the Czech police, who must help them, and there are more than 20,000 men taking part in the operation. All access routes are cut off, all main roads blocked, streets closed, buildings searched, people checked. Everywhere I look, I see armed men jumping from uncovered trucks, running in columns from one building to the next, filling stairwells with the pounding of boots and the clanking of steel, hammering on doors, shouting orders in German, dragging people from their beds, turning their apartments upside down, pushing them about and barking at them. The SS in particular seem to have completely lost control: they pace up and down the streets like angry madmen, shooting at lighted windows or open windows, expecting at any moment to be the victims of snipers waiting in ambush. This is not a state of emergency—it’s a state of war. The police operation plunges the entire city into indescribable chaos. That night 36,000 apartments are visited—for a meager yield, compared with the means deployed. They arrest 541 people—of whom three or four are tramps, one a prostitute, one a juvenile delinquent, and one a Resistance leader with no link whatsoever to Anthropoid—and immediately release 430 of them. And they do not find a single trace of the parachutists. What’s worse, this is only the beginning. Gabčík, Kubiš, Valčík, and their friends must have had a strange night. I wonder if any of them managed to sleep? I would be very surprised. As for me … I’m sleeping very badly these days.
On the hospital’s second floor, emptied of all but one of its patients, Heydrich is lying in bed. He is weak, his senses are numbed, his body aching, but he’s conscious. The door opens, and the guard lets his wife, Lina, into the room. He tries to smile at her—he’s happy she’s here. She, too, is relieved to see her husband alive, albeit very pale and bedridden. Yesterday, when she saw him just after his operation, all white and unconscious, she thought he was dead. Even after waking up, he looked barely any better. She didn’t believe the doctors’ reassuring words. And if the parachutists had trouble sleeping, Lina’s night wasn’t very pleasant either.
This morning she brings him hot soup in a thermos flask. Yesterday: victim of an assassination attempt. Today: already convalescent. The Blond Beast has thick skin. He’ll be fine, as always.
Mrs. Moravec goes to fetch Valčík. Her husband, the kindhearted railway worker, does not want to let Valčík leave in his current state. He gives him a book to read on the tram, so he can hide his face: