October 24, 1942: family members of Heydrich’s assassins murdered in Mauthausen
In retaliation for the assassination of Heydrich, 262 relatives and helpers of the paratroopers from groups Anthropoid, Silver A, Bivouac, Out Distance, Steel and Intransitive were court-martialled and sentenced to death by the Prague Gestapo 80 years ago.
The victims were mostly entire families, including children aged 14-17. They were taken to Mauthausen concentration camp from Terezín and murdered on October 24, 1942.
In the room where they were sent for a supposed medical examination, they were made to stand with their backs to a wall marked with a height meter. They were then shot with a bullet to the back of the head through a hidden hole in the wall.
According to the Mauthausen execution records and death certificates, they were killed in two-minute intervals over a period of almost nine hours. Their bodies were burned and the ashes dumped on a rubbish pile behind the camp.
Another group of 31 co-conspirators was executed in Mauthausen on 26 January 1943 and the last victim, František Pecháček, was killed on 3 February 1944.
In total, 294 people were murdered. 150 of them were women.
