The curve in Holešovice Street (ulice v Holešovičkách in Czech), in the Libeň district, has several advantages. First of all, it is almost a hairpin, so the Mercedes will be forced to slow right down. Next, it’s at the foot of a hill where they can post a lookout to warn them of the Mercedes’s arrival. Finally, it’s in the suburbs, midway between Panenské Břežany and Hradčany: neither in the city center nor in the countryside. So it offers the possibility of escape.
The Holešovice curve also has some disadvantages. It’s at a crossroads intersected by tram tracks. If a tram goes by at the same time as the Mercedes, there’s a danger the operation will be compromised—because the car might be hidden or civilians put at risk.
I have never assassinated anyone, but I suppose there is no such thing as ideal conditions: a moment comes when you have to decide. And anyway, there isn’t time to find anything better. So Holešovice it is: this curve that no longer exists, swallowed up by a highway ramp and by modernity, which couldn’t care less about my memories.
Because I do remember now. Each day, each hour, the memory grows clearer. On this bend of Holešovice Street, I feel I’ve been waiting forever.
I’m spending a few days on vacation in a beautiful house in Toulon, and I’m doing a bit of writing. This is no ordinary house: it’s the former residence of an Alsatian printer who, in the course of his job, rubbed shoulders with Paul Eluard and Elsa Triolet.* During the war he was in Lyon, where he printed false papers for Jews and stocked books by the underground publisher Éditions de Minuit. At the same time, the land surrounding his house in Toulon was occupied by German army camps, but apparently no one lived in the house, which remained in good condition. The furniture and the books were not touched, and they’re still here.
This man’s great-niece, knowing of my interest in the period, shows me a slim volume taken from the family library. It’s the original edition of
The Silence of the Sea
I am on vacation and I hold a bit of history in my hands. It is a very sweet and pleasant feeling.
There are alarming rumors about Heydrich. He will leave Prague. For good. Tomorrow, he must take the plane to Berlin. No one knows if he will return. This would obviously be a relief to the Czech people, but it would be a disaster for Operation Anthropoid. Alarming news for the parachutists, and also—although they know nothing about it—for the French. It is whispered among historians that perhaps Heydrich, having accomplished his mission in the Protectorate, now has his eye on what today we would call “a new challenge.” Having dealt so ruthlessly and brutally with Bohemia and Moravia, Heydrich would now sort out France.
He has to go to Berlin to discuss this with Hitler. France is in turmoil; Pétain and Laval are worms; if Heydrich could deal with the French Resistance the way he dealt with the Czech Resistance, that would be perfect.
This is only a theory, although it is backed up by Heydrich’s trip to Paris two weeks earlier.
That’s right—in May 1942, Heydrich spent a week in Paris. I have found the film of his visit in the archives of the National Audiovisual Institute. A clip from the day’s French news: fifty-nine seconds of filmed reportage. Speaking in that nasal voice so typical of the 1940s, the newsreader announces:
“Paris. Arrival of Mr. Heydrich, the SS general, chief of police, Reich representative in Prague, asked by the head of the SS and the German police, Mr. Himmler, to officially appoint Mr. Oberg, major general of the SS and of the police in the occupied territories. Mr. Heydrich is the head of the International Commission of the Criminal Police, and France has always been represented at this commission. The general took advantage of his stay in Paris to receive Mr. Bousquet, secretary-general of the police, and Mr. Hilaire, secretary-general of the administration. Mr. Heydrich also made contact with Mr. Darquier de Pellepoix, who, along with Mr. de Brinon, has just been named commissioner for Jewish affairs.”