He killed himself by a shot in his right temple
Josef Gabčík died on June 18th in the crypt of the church of St. Cyril and Methodius. This is where together with others he led a four-hour battle, which he ended by a shot in his right temple. In the following days his body was identified and autopsied, the head was separated from the body and throughout the whole war it was kept in a cabinet of the German institute of forensic medicine in Prague. Allegedly it was to become a part of an intended German museum. At the end of the war in April 1945 the heads of Gabčík and Kubiš were taken to an unknown place. The bodies were buried in a mass grave. Ján Báčík recalls him, a veteran from the Western front, who knew him well from England: “Together we remembered our homeland, the Slovak mountains. He left for a course and we didn’t even manage to say goodbye. Jožko was great, a tough Slovak guy.”
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Josef Gabčík
Josef Gabčík was born on 8th April 1912 in a Slovak village Poluvsie near Rájecké Teplice. (His first name is written with an “s” because that is how he signed himself and his name also appears in that form in his school reports.) His father František as a labourer was leaving for work in coal mines in the USA and Argentina. His mother Mária, born Baránková, was taking care of the household and helping out at a local farmer’s. He had three siblings. He learned to be a blacksmith and a locksmith. In October 1932 he started his military service at the 14th infantry regiment in Košice and subsequently he was sent to a school for non-commissioned officers in Prešov. In September 1934 his application to further service, as a non-commissioned officer with a longer service, was accepted and later he was promoted to the rank of sergeant. In June 1939 he fled to Poland, signed a commitment to serve in the French Foreign Legion and on board of the ship “Chrobry” sailed to France and then to Algiers. He served in the 1st regiment of the Foreign Legion in the Sidi bel Abbes garrison in Algiers. After the war broke out he returned to France and was assigned to the 12th company, a machine-gun company of the 1st infantry regiment, of the constituting Czechoslovak army. As a deputy commander of the platoon he took part in the battles in France, from where he was evacuated to England. Here he attended special courses and was placed in the paragroup ANTHROPOID. The paratroopers’ task was to carry out the assassination of the Deputy Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich on the territory of the Protectorate. He managed to do so together with his friend Kubiš on 27th May 1942.
