Prague, May 15 (CTK) – A commemorative plaque was unveiled yesterday at the house where Vaclav Moravek and Josef Masin, from the resistance group called the Three Kings, and their radio operator Frantisek Peltan fought the Gestapo.
Deputy Prime Minister Pavel Belobradek (Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL) said it was a shame that so many years had passed since the event before the public started commemorating them in a dignified way.
“At present, we may see some positions and viewpoints of the heroes somewhat different. With the hindsight of decades, with the hindsight of our experience. What remains is their heroism, courage and the values that are worth dying,” Belobradek said.
From their flat, the three resistance fighters were sending dispatches to London in the evening of May 13, 1941.
“At the moment, they knew the Gestapo was arresting their collaborators. At 19:15, they sent the brief dispatch: We are attacked,” Eduard Stehlik, director of the Defence Ministry war veterans department, said.
The Gestapo caught Masin, then tortured him and executed him on June 30, 1942 in Prague.
After the April arrest of Jozef Balaban, the remaining member of the trio, and Masin in May, only Moravek was still at liberty. He was killed in a shoot-out with the Gestapo in March 1942.
