A Guide to Prague under the Protectorate #23

This building housed the national School Board, which employed a Sokol resistance member, Bedřich Kubice. Jan Zelenka-Hajský, Václav Novák and Jaroslav Pechman began meeting here in 1939 in order to plan their resistance activities. Bedřich Kubice was arrested by the Gestapo in his office on July 18, 1942. Marie Kovárníková and her sister Ludmila Soukupová lived on the ground floor of the building. The two often accompanied Czech parachutists Josef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš around Prague in the spring of 1942, the same year in which the parachutists assassinated Reinhard Heydrich. František Šafařík, an employee of the economic administration of Prague Castle, a co-worker of Jana Zelenka-Hajský, and a Resistance informant brought news of Heydrich’s movements and actions to this location. He brought his last report on Heydrich’s route from his home in Panenské Břežany to Prague Castle about ten days before the assassination was carried out. The day after the assassination, Jan Kubiš came to this apartment and told Marie Kovárníková that he had assassinated Reinhard Heydrich. Marie Kovárníková and Ludmila Soukupová were arrested by the Gestapo on June 25, 1942 after they were denounced by the building caretaker, Josef Otta. The Gestapo believed the women’s stories that they had been the parachutists’ lovers and that they had no connection to the Resistance. Both were executed on October 24, 1942 in Mauthausen anyway. One of the hideouts of Josef Balabán and his partner Josefa Kochmannová was also on this street.