Explore the real-world places that appear in HHhH by Laurent Binet. Each location on the map shows what happens there in the novel, the real history of the place, and what's there today. Featured locations include Cathedral of Saints Cyril and Methodius, Holešovice Bend — The Assassination Site, Prague Castle (Hradčany), Bulovka Hospital, Lidice and 9 more.
Resslova 9, New Town — The final stand of Gabčík, Kubiš, and the paratroopers
After the assassination of Heydrich, Jozef Gabčík, Jan Kubiš, and five other Czech paratroopers took refuge in the crypt of this Orthodox cathedral, hidden by the Czech Orthodox bishop Gorazd. On June 18, 1942, the SS and Gestapo surrounded the building after Karel Čurda betrayed the resistance. The paratroopers fought for hours — Kubiš and three others in the nave loft, Gabčík and two others in the flooded crypt — before being killed or taking their own lives rather than surrendering. Binet renders this final battle with agonizing detail, mourning the deaths of men he has come to love through his years of research.
The cathedral was built between 1730 and 1736 in Baroque style. During the Nazi occupation, Bishop Gorazd and the Czech Orthodox community sheltered the paratroopers at enormous personal risk. Gorazd was executed by the Nazis following the siege. The crypt was deliberately flooded by the SS using fire hoses in an attempt to flush out the surviving paratroopers.
The cathedral remains an active Orthodox church and houses a memorial museum to Operation Anthropoid in its crypt. Bullet marks from the 1942 siege are still visible on the exterior walls. It is one of Prague's most significant WWII memorial sites, open to visitors year-round.
Visit: National Memorial to the Heroes of the Heydrich Terror (museum)
V Holešovičkách, Prague 8 — Where Heydrich was mortally wounded
On the morning of May 27, 1942, Gabčík and Kubiš waited at this sharp hairpin bend where Heydrich's open Mercedes was forced to slow down. Gabčík stepped into the road and raised his Sten gun — it jammed. Rather than order his driver to speed away, Heydrich stood up in the car to fire back at Gabčík. In that moment, Kubiš hurled an anti-tank grenade which exploded against the car's rear wheel, sending shrapnel into Heydrich's body. Binet reconstructs this scene meticulously, cross-referencing multiple testimonies, obsessed with the details — the color of the car, the exact curve of the road, the fatal hubris of a man who refused to flee.
The Holešovice bend on V Holešovičkách street was deliberately chosen by Gabčík and Kubiš because it was one of the few points on Heydrich's daily route from his Panenské Břežany estate to Prague Castle where his car was forced to slow significantly. Heydrich died of his wounds on June 4, 1942, eight days after the attack.
A small memorial plaque marks the assassination site today. The street remains a busy urban road in the Libeň district. The bend itself, though widened, is still recognizable and is visited by those retracing the events of Operation Anthropoid.
Visit: Anthropoid Assassination Memorial Plaque (monument)
Hradčanské náměstí — Heydrich's seat of power as Reichsprotektor
Reinhard Heydrich ruled the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia from Prague Castle, installed as Acting Reich Protector in September 1941. Binet portrays Heydrich holding court here with terrifying efficiency — ordering mass executions, liquidating the Czech intelligentsia, and hosting lavish dinners that mocked the starving Czech population below. It is from this seat of absolute power that Heydrich commuted each morning in his open-top Mercedes, the arrogance that Binet identifies as his ultimate undoing.
Prague Castle has been the seat of Bohemian kings, Holy Roman Emperors, and Czech presidents for over a millennium. During the Nazi occupation from 1939 to 1945, it served as the administrative headquarters of the Reich Protectorate. Heydrich formally took up residence and administrative duties there in late 1941.
Prague Castle is one of the largest ancient castles in the world and is the official residence of the Czech president. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the most visited tourist attraction in the Czech Republic, drawing over a million visitors annually.
Visit: Prague Castle (historic site)
Budínova 2, Prague 8 — Where Heydrich died
After the attack at the Holešovice bend, Heydrich was rushed to Bulovka Hospital where Nazi Germany's best surgeons were flown in to save him. For eight days he fought for his life — initially seeming to recover — before dying on June 4, 1942, likely from septicemia caused by shrapnel, horsehair, and upholstery from the car's seats that had been driven into his body. Binet dwells on the irony that the most feared man in the Reich was felled not by a bullet but by bacteria, the body's final refusal to obey.
Bulovka Hospital was one of Prague's major medical facilities during the occupation. Heydrich's death there on June 4, 1942 set off a wave of brutal Nazi reprisals across Bohemia and Moravia, including the complete destruction of the villages of Lidice and Ležáky.
Bulovka University Hospital remains a major active medical facility in Prague. A memorial plaque on the building commemorates the events of May–June 1942. The hospital is not generally open to tourists but the plaque is visible from the exterior.
Village near Kladno, Central Bohemia — Razed by the Nazis in reprisal
Binet describes the destruction of Lidice with barely contained rage. On June 10, 1942, the SS executed all 173 men and boys over 15, sent the women to Ravensbrück concentration camp, and gassed most of the children. The entire village was burned to the ground and bulldozed until nothing remained. The Nazis falsely linked Lidice to the paratroopers. For Binet, Lidice represents the full moral weight of Heydrich's evil — and the reason why, despite the reprisals, the assassination was historically necessary.
Lidice was a small Czech mining village with no genuine connection to the paratroopers. The Nazis targeted it based on a spurious letter found on a Czech soldier. The massacre of Lidice became one of the most infamous Nazi war crimes and a symbol of resistance across the Allied world — towns in Mexico, Brazil, and the United States renamed themselves Lidice in solidarity.
The site of the original village is preserved as a memorial landscape — the ground is bare, with rose gardens planted where homes once stood. The Lidice Memorial and Museum documents the massacre in detail. The rebuilt village of Lidice stands nearby.
Visit: Lidice Memorial (historic site)
Near Nehvizdy / Lidice region, Central Bohemia — Landing of Operation Anthropoid
In the night of December 28–29, 1941, Gabčík and Kubiš parachuted from a British Halifax bomber into the Protectorate, landing near the village of Nehvizdy not far from Prague. Binet reconstructs the jump with nervous energy — the freezing night air, the darkness, the uncertainty of where exactly they had landed. The two men were immediately alone in occupied enemy territory, armed, hunted, and dependent entirely on the Czech resistance networks to survive.
RAF Special Operations Executive flights regularly dropped agents into occupied Czechoslovakia from airbases in Britain. The Anthropoid team's drop on December 28–29, 1941 was part of a wider series of operations parachuting Czech and Slovak agents back into their homeland to carry out sabotage and intelligence missions.
The area around Nehvizdy contains a small memorial to the Anthropoid paratroopers. The agricultural landscape is largely unchanged. The drop zone is not a formal tourist site but is noted in Czech wartime heritage trails.
Žižkov district, Prague 3 — Key resistance safe house
The Moravec family — Alois and Marie Moravec and their son Ata — were among the most important protectors of the Anthropoid paratroopers in Prague. Binet tells the devastating story of Ata Moravec, who after his father's arrest was plied with alcohol and broken by the Gestapo, leading them to the Cathedral crypt. Marie Moravec swallowed a cyanide capsule rather than be interrogated. Binet mourns the Moravec family specifically, treating their sacrifice as both heroic and heartbreaking, one of the book's most emotionally charged sections.
Žižkov was a working-class Prague district with a strong tradition of Czech nationalism and resistance. The Moravec family's apartment served as a crucial node in the underground network protecting the paratroopers. Following the betrayal, Alois Moravec was executed and Ata sent to a concentration camp.
Žižkov remains a residential neighborhood of Prague. The specific building associated with the Moravec family is a private apartment building and bears a memorial plaque honoring their wartime sacrifice. The district is increasingly known for its vibrant café culture and the Žižkov Television Tower.
Staroměstské náměstí, Prague 1 — Heart of occupied Prague
Binet uses the Old Town Square as a recurring backdrop for occupied Prague — the city going about its daily life under Nazi terror, posters announcing executions plastered on walls, German soldiers patrolling the cobblestones. It is the face of Prague that Heydrich controlled through fear, and through which Gabčík and Kubiš moved carefully, blending into crowds, always one mistaken glance from death. The Astronomical Clock on the Old Town Hall chimed indifferently through years of occupation.
Old Town Square has been the historical center of Prague since the 12th century. During the Nazi occupation, the square served as a site of public proclamations, reprisal announcements, and German military displays. The Old Town Hall was partially destroyed by the SS in May 1945 during the Prague Uprising.
Old Town Square is Prague's most visited public space, home to the medieval Astronomical Clock, the Church of Our Lady before Týn, and the Jan Hus Memorial. It remains the symbolic heart of Czech national identity and a major tourist destination.
Visit: Old Town Square (landmark)
Václavské náměstí, Prague 1 — Symbol of Czech resistance and Nazi power
Binet references Wenceslas Square as the symbolic stage of Czech history — both the humiliation of Nazi occupation and the spirit of Czech national resistance embodied in the statue of Saint Wenceslas. The square witnessed Nazi military parades and, after Heydrich's assassination, the posting of death-sentence lists. For Binet, who is writing in part a meditation on how places absorb history, Wenceslas Square carries the accumulated weight of Czech suffering and defiance.
Wenceslas Square has been the center of Czech political life for centuries, named after the patron saint of Bohemia. During the occupation it was renamed Adolf-Hitler-Platz by the Nazis. It later became the site of Jan Palach's 1969 self-immolation protesting the Soviet invasion, and the 1989 Velvet Revolution.
Wenceslas Square remains a major commercial and cultural boulevard in central Prague. The equestrian statue of Saint Wenceslas at the top of the square is a national landmark. The square is lined with hotels, shops, cinemas, and restaurants.
Visit: Wenceslas Square (landmark)
Panenské Břežany, Central Bohemia — Heydrich's private residence
Heydrich lived with his family at this country estate north of Prague, commuting each morning by open-top Mercedes along the same route — the route that Gabčík and Kubiš exploited. Binet notes with cold irony that Heydrich's bodyguards repeatedly urged him to vary his route and travel in an armored car, but Heydrich refused, displaying the contemptuous invulnerability of a man who believed the occupied Czechs too cowed to dare attack him. That fatal arrogance, Binet argues, was his one human flaw.
The estate at Panenské Břežany was appropriated from its Jewish owner by the Nazis and assigned to Heydrich upon his appointment as Acting Reich Protector. It became the family home of Heydrich, his wife Lina, and their children during the occupation.
The estate buildings still stand in Panenské Břežany and have served various institutional purposes over the decades. The property is not consistently open as a public museum, though its wartime history is documented. Access is limited.
Grosvenor Square area, Westminster, London — Where Anthropoid was conceived
It was in London that President Edvard Beneš and the Czechoslovak government-in-exile authorized Operation Anthropoid — the mission to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich. Binet traces the plan back to its origins in exile, where Beneš calculated that a spectacular act of resistance would prove to the Allies that Czechoslovakia was actively fighting back and deserved to be restored as a sovereign state after the war. Gabčík and Kubiš were recruited, trained, and dispatched from Britain with the full weight of this political calculation on their shoulders.
The Czechoslovak government-in-exile operated from London from 1940 onward under President Edvard Beneš. It maintained close cooperation with the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the RAF, training dozens of Czech and Slovak agents for operations in the Protectorate.
The area around Grosvenor Square in Westminster retains many of its wartime diplomatic associations. A Czech Memorial Garden exists in London honoring Czechoslovak servicemen and women who fought alongside Britain. The Czech Embassy remains active in London.
Visit: Czech Memorial Unveiled — Grosvenor Square (monument)
RAF Duxford, Cambridgeshire, England — Training base for Anthropoid operatives
Gabčík and Kubiš underwent grueling SOE commando and parachute training at British military installations including Duxford before being deployed. Binet describes the training period as a kind of limbo — the two men perfecting the skills of killing while waiting to be sent back to a homeland they might never return from. The Halifax bomber that dropped them over Bohemia in December 1941 departed from a British airfield, carrying them from the safety of exile into mortal danger.
RAF Duxford served as a key fighter station during the Battle of Britain and as a base for various Allied operations throughout WWII. The SOE used multiple British bases for training European agents before deploying them into occupied territories.
Duxford is home to the Imperial War Museum Duxford, one of the world's leading aviation museums. It houses an extensive collection of historic aircraft and WWII exhibits, and the airfield itself remains operational for air shows and events.
Visit: IWM Duxford (museum)
Brest, Belarus (then Soviet-occupied Poland) — Crossing point in the escape west
Binet traces the harrowing escape route of Gabčík and Kubiš after the fall of Czechoslovakia in 1939 — across borders, through Soviet-occupied territory, and eventually to France to join the Free Czechoslovak Army. Brest was a key crossing point along the underground escape corridors used by Czech soldiers fleeing the Nazi occupation. Binet is fascinated by these escape journeys, the sheer determination required to travel across a collapsing Europe to continue fighting.
Brest (then Brest-Litovsk) fell under Soviet occupation following the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in September 1939. It was a significant transit point for refugees and soldiers escaping occupied Central Europe heading toward the Middle East or France to join Allied forces.
Brest is a major city in southwestern Belarus near the Polish border. The Brest Fortress, site of a heroic Soviet defense in 1941, is a major war memorial and museum. The city itself is a regional center with strong cross-border ties to Poland.
Visit: Brest Fortress Memorial Complex (historic site)
Terezín, North Bohemia — Nazi transit camp referenced throughout the book
Binet connects Heydrich directly to the machinery of the Holocaust — it was Heydrich who chaired the Wannsee Conference in January 1942 which formalized the 'Final Solution,' and Theresienstadt was established under his authority as a transit ghetto for Czech Jews. For Binet, Heydrich's assassination must be understood in this context: the man Gabčík and Kubiš killed was the principal architect of genocide. Binet does not allow the reader to experience the assassination as mere adventure — Theresienstadt is his reminder of the full moral stakes.
Theresienstadt was established as a ghetto and transit camp in November 1941 on Heydrich's orders. Over 150,000 Jews were deported there; tens of thousands died of disease and starvation, and many were sent onward to Auschwitz and other extermination camps. It was also used cynically as a 'model camp' for Red Cross inspections.
The Terezín Memorial at the former Small Fortress and the Ghetto Museum are major Holocaust memorial and educational sites. The town of Terezín itself still exists as a small community. The memorial complex draws visitors from around the world.
Visit: Terezín Memorial (historic site)
More by Laurent Binet: All Laurent Binet books
Other nearby maps: Berlin Noir by Philip Kerr locations map