Some locations carry such profound historical weight that filming a dramatic story there becomes almost sacred act. The Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius (Chrám svatého Cyrila a Metoděje) in Prague’s Nové Město neighborhood is one such location. In 1942, this church became the site of one of World War II’s most dramatic episodes: the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia, and the subsequent siege and murder of his assassins. When director Sean Penn filmed Anthropoid (2016), his dramatization of the Heydrich assassination, he made the decision to film partly at the actual church—the precise location where history’s drama was enacted.
This convergence of historical reality and cinematic recreation shapes Anthropoid in ways that distinguish it from other war films. The movie is not escaping into the past; it’s literally recreating events in the locations where they occurred. That gravitas, that sense of actual historical weight, permeates the film and deepens its power.
The Historical Context: Heydrich and the Protectorate
Understanding Anthropoid requires understanding its historical context. After Nazi Germany’s occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939, the country was divided into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (under German control) and the puppet Slovak State. The Protectorate was administered by a Reichsprotektor (imperial protector), initially Konstantin von Neurath, but from 1941 onward, Reinhard Heydrich.
Heydrich was one of the Third Reich’s most powerful and brutal leaders. He orchestrated the “Final Solution”—the genocide of European Jewry. He was, by all accounts, exceptionally intelligent, ruthless, and ideologically committed to Nazi ideology. He was also young—in his mid-30s—and possessed an arrogance that suggested invulnerability.
In 1941, the Czechoslovak government-in-exile, operating from London, authorized Operation Anthropoid: the assassination of Heydrich. The operation was personally risky and strategically complex. The Czech government knew that assassinating Heydrich would provoke Nazi retaliation, likely against Czech civilians. They authorized it anyway, calculating that the symbolic and strategic value of eliminating a key Nazi leader justified the cost in Czech lives.
Anthropoid: The Film
Sean Penn’s Anthropoid stars Cillian Murphy and Jamie Dornan as Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš, the two Czech resistance fighters who carried out the assassination. The film is a thriller, a historical drama, and a meditation on sacrifice and resistance. It’s also unusual in that it directly engages with the specific locations where events occurred.
The assassination itself happened in Prague on June 4, 1942. Heydrich was traveling in an open-top Mercedes when Gabčík attempted to shoot him. The gun jammed. Kubiš then threw an anti-tank mine, which exploded under the car. Heydrich was wounded but escaped. He died eight days later from his injuries and resulting infections.
The assassins, along with other resistance fighters sheltering them, were tracked by Nazi forces and eventually cornered in a church. After a siege lasting hours, the resistance fighters were killed—some by suicide to avoid capture, others by execution.
Anthropoid dramatizes this entire sequence of events, combining historical accuracy with cinematic tension. The film is meticulous in its historical detail while also serving as a thriller, creating suspense from events the audience may know the outcome of.
The Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius: History’s Theater
The climactic scenes of Anthropoid take place in the Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius, and Sean Penn filmed portions of these scenes at the actual church. The church’s crypt—where the resistance fighters sought refuge—still exists, and visitors can descend into the actual space where the siege occurred.
The church itself is not particularly grand or architecturally famous. It’s a modest baroque church in Prague’s Nové Město (New Town) neighborhood, located at Resslova 9a. Its ordinariness contrasts with its historical significance. A casual observer might pass the church without realizing its importance. But a plaque on the exterior commemorates the event, and the crypt has been preserved as a memorial and small museum.
Visiting the Church and Crypt: The church remains an active place of worship, as well as a historical memorial. Visitors can descend into the crypt where the siege occurred. The space is small, intimate, and emotionally powerful. The bullet holes in the walls remain, visible evidence of the gunfire. The window through which the resistance fighters attempted escape is preserved. Personal effects, photographs, and explanatory materials provide historical context.
The visit is sobering. The crypt is confined and claustrophobic—you understand quickly why the situation was hopeless once the church was surrounded. The resistance fighters faced certain death. They chose to go out fighting rather than submit to Nazi torture and execution. That choice, in that space, is palpable.
Hours and Access: The church is open to visitors at specific times. Crypt visits should be arranged in advance. The church occasionally hosts religious services; be respectful of these. The memorial is maintained by the Czech government and is treated with appropriate solemnity.
The Broader Context: WWII Czech Resistance
Anthropoid is one of several films engaging with Czech resistance during WWII. The Czech experience was distinctive: direct Nazi occupation, a puppet state government that collaborated while also being constrained by German military occupation, a population subjected to both Nazi racial ideology and Soviet communist influence (the Soviet Union was an ally by 1941, and the Czech government-in-exile recognized Soviet claims to influence).
The Czech resistance was complex. It included both pro-Western groups (aligned with the government-in-exile in London) and pro-Soviet groups. It included elements of the military, the intelligentsia, students, and ordinary citizens. Some resistance was armed; some was cultural (maintaining Czech identity through language and tradition despite attempts at Germanization); some was simply individual acts of defiance.
The assassination of Heydrich was the single most dramatic act of Czech resistance, which is why it has been filmed multiple times and remains culturally central to Czech memory of the war. But it was also atypical—most resistance was quieter, less visible, and less immediately consequential.
Jojo Rabbit and Czech WWII Settings
Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit (2019), a satirical fantasy-drama about a Nazi youth in WWII, filmed portions in the Czech Republic. While the film is set in Germany, the Czech Republic provided locations standing in for German towns and countryside. The film’s approach—using humor and magical realism to address Nazi ideology—contrasts with Anthropoid‘s historical seriousness, yet both films demonstrate how Czech locations can serve WWII narratives.
Jojo Rabbit is less interested in Czech history than in using Czech locations as generic “WWII Europe.” This is typical of many WWII films—the Czech Republic serves as a stand-in for Germany or other locations, its specific history less relevant than its general European aesthetic. But the contrast between Anthropoid‘s intense focus on Czech resistance and Jojo Rabbit‘s use of Czech locations for universal WWII themes illustrates how the same locations can serve different narratives.
Lidice: The Massacre That Followed
The Nazi retaliation for Heydrich’s assassination was swift and brutal. On June 10, 1942, Nazi forces destroyed the village of Lidice, near Prague, killing all 173 men and boys in the village, deporting the women to Ravensbrück concentration camp, and sending the children to Theresienstadt or Auschwitz. The massacre was partly motivated by false evidence suggesting Lidice residents were connected to the assassination (they weren’t); partly it was simply collective punishment.
Lidice was systematically destroyed—buildings razed, bodies buried in mass graves, the village literally erased from the map. After the war, the village was partially rebuilt as a memorial and museum dedicated to remembering both the resistance and the reprisals.
Visiting Lidice: The Lidice Memorial is located about 20 kilometers northwest of Prague, accessible by car or bus. The site includes a museum detailing the history of the assassination and the massacre, a memorial garden, and reconstructed buildings representing the pre-war village. The memorial is one of the Czech Republic’s most important WWII sites.
Walking through Lidice is emotionally difficult. The scale of the village—not large, not particularly important strategically—emphasizes the arbitrariness of the massacre. These were ordinary people in an ordinary village. The Nazi decision to destroy the village and kill its inhabitants was disproportionate and random in the sense that Lidice residents weren’t actually involved in Heydrich’s assassination.
The visit provides necessary context for understanding Anthropoid. The film’s climax—the siege at the church and the death of the assassins—is not the end of the story. The cost of the assassination was paid not by the assassins alone, but by innocent civilians. Understanding this is essential to understanding Czech memory of the war.
The Ethical Complexity of Assassination
Anthropoid raises an ethical question that haunts resistance narratives: Was the assassination justified, given the foreknowledge of probable retaliation against civilians? The Czech government-in-exile authorized the operation despite knowing the likely consequences. The assassination succeeded (Heydrich died, though not immediately). But innocent people died—both in the Nazi retaliation and in reprisals against the broader Czech population.
The film doesn’t resolve this question. It presents the facts and allows viewers to wrestle with the ethics. This ambiguity deepens Anthropoid‘s power. It doesn’t present resistance as straightforwardly heroic; it presents resistance as morally complex, involving tragic choices and devastating consequences.
Theresienstadt and the Czech Jewish Experience
The Nazi occupation’s impact on Czech Jews was catastrophic. Most Czech Jews were deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto (Terezín), a “model ghetto” created by the Nazis partly to deceive the international community about conditions in concentration camps. From Theresienstadt, Czech Jews were transported to Auschwitz and other death camps.
The Theresienstadt Memorial (at Terezín, about 50 kilometers north of Prague) documents this history. The site includes the former ghetto, preserved structures, and a museum. It’s a crucial location for understanding Czech WWII history beyond the resistance narrative.
Visiting Theresienstadt: The memorial and ghetto are open to visitors. The experience is emotionally intense—you walk the streets where thousands lived in unbearable conditions, see preserved structures, and confront the reality of the Holocaust. This is heavy tourism, appropriate for serious engagement with history but not for casual visits.
Prague’s WWII Geography
For visitors interested in WWII Czech history, Prague offers a constellation of sites:
- The Old Jewish Quarter (Židovská čtvrť): Preserved medieval streets, synagogues, and a Jewish museum documenting Czech Jewish life and persecution.
The Broader Question: Filming WWII Czech History
Anthropoid is significant partly because it treats Czech WWII history as worthy of serious cinematic attention. For too long, WWII film narratives centered on Western European and American perspectives, or on the Holocaust’s systematic genocide. Czech resistance, Czech suffering, Czech agency—these received less attention in global cinema.
Recent Czech and international productions have begun addressing this gap. Films like Anthropoid, combined with memorials like Lidice and Theresienstadt, ensure that Czech WWII history is preserved and transmitted. This matters for historical memory, for Czech national identity, and for global understanding of the war’s complexity.
Conclusion: History’s Presence in Prague
Walking through Prague and engaging with WWII sites offers something different from conventional tourism. You’re tracing paths taken by resistance fighters, standing in the actual spaces where history’s drama unfolded, confronting the material reality of events often encountered only as abstract history lessons.
Anthropoid serves as a gateway to this engagement. The film dramatizes historical events, but it also directs attention to the actual locations. Watching the film before visiting Prague deepens the experience. Walking through the Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius after having seen Anthropoid makes the space simultaneously more comprehensible and more emotionally overwhelming.
This is what cinema can offer to historical memory: not replacement for direct engagement with history, but a pathway into that engagement. The film humanizes abstractions, creates emotional connection, and makes the past present in ways that pure historical narration might not achieve.
For visitors to Prague seeking to understand both the city and the history it carries, engaging with Anthropoid and the WWII sites it depicts is profoundly worthwhile—challenging, emotional, but ultimately enriching.
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