The last gold coin of the Czech Mint from the four-part miniseries issued on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of Operation Anthropoid commemorates the tragic fate of the inhabitants of Lidice and Ležáky.

In retaliation for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, a bloody terror was unleashed in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Despite the raids and executions, the Germans were unable to catch the attackers. They therefore decided to intimidate the conquered nation and chose a place called Lidice as a demonstration of their power. An innocent love letter led the Gestapo to the Central Bohemian village and seemed to be a clue leading to the assassins. Although suspicions were soon dispelled, the Third Reich officials were not interested in this fact.  Firing squads shot nearly two hundred Lidice men on the morning of June 10, 1942. The remaining inhabitants then met an even crueler fate. Two hundred women were sent to death in concentration camps and over eighty children were murdered by exhaust fumes - only a few were spared and they were sent for re-education. But the suffering was not yet over - 14 days later, on 24 June 1942, the Nazis repeated their rampage in the village of Ležáky in the Chrudim region, where the paratroopers' radio was hidden. All thirty-three adult inhabitants of Ležáky were shot, eleven children were sent to the gas chamber and two were destined for Germanization. Both villages were to be wiped off the map and history forever. But this did not happen and their sacrifice must never be forgotten...

The medal maker Petr Patka, DiS., was inspired by the memorial sites of the two exterminated villages when creating the reverse side of the coin. He connected the Lidice sculpture, which is a memorial dedicated to the child victims of the war, with the cross from the tombstones of Ležáky. The obverse side, which is common to the entire four-part miniseries, then commemorates the fate of the Czechoslovak paratroopers who ended the tyranny of Reinhard Heydrich and their fellow soldiers who found death in the crypt of a Prague church - presenting seven crosses, the year 1942 and a crypt window with clear traces of enemy gunfire. As the licence to issue commemorative coins of the Czech Mint is granted by the Pacific island of Niue, the obverse side still bears its necessary attributes - the name and portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, the nominal value of 10 DOLLARS (NZD) and the year of issue 2022.

Remember that you can store your complete collection of coins that tell the story of the legendary Operation Anthropoid in a collector's case.