Play Book Tag discussion

HHhH by Laurent Binet - 4* - My Review

“Gabčík existed…His story is as true as it is extraordinary. He and his comrades are, in my eyes, the authors of one of the greatest acts of resistance in human history, and without doubt the greatest of the Second World War.”

This is the story of Operation Anthropoid. It is a combination of history, memoir, and historical fiction about the 1942 assassination of Reinhard Heyrich, known as Hitler’s Hangman and the Butcher of Prague. The protagonists are the two assassins of the Czechoslovakian resistance, Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš, who were trained by British Special Operations. They parachuted back into their home country, were harbored by fellow resistors, and eventually seized an opportunity.

It is written in an unusual fashion. The author comments on his research and the decisions he made while writing this book. It is hard for me to imagine immersing oneself in the macabre history of Heydrich and his horrific acts but the story that emerges is well worth reading. It is a riveting account. It reads like fiction, but Binet wanted to stick almost exclusively to the facts. As he puts it, “Inventing a character in order to understand historical facts is like fabricating evidence…It’s like planting false proof at a crime scene where the floor is already strewn with incriminating evidence.” I found it exceptional.

4.5

PBT comments: I almost filed this under "scary" since Heydrich was one scary individual.