A member of our local community, Betty Chandler, told us that during the Second World War Leamington was "full of Americans, Poles, Czechs, every nationality".

Ronnie Goldstein's uncle, who had arrived from Germany, was a member of the Pioneer Corps, stationed in Leamington during the war.


Czech soldiers (from the Czech Army-in-Exile) were housed in a building at the top of Windsor Street, others at nearby Moreton Paddox, where they were training secretly for a special mission to assassinate the Nazi, Reinhard Heydrich, in Czechoslovakia. Heydrich was one of those responsible for drawing up plans for the Final Solution, the Nazi programme for the genocide of Jews in Europe.


The operation, nicknamed Anthropoid, was a success, but led to fierce Nazi reprisals against the Czech people. Thousands of arrests were made and the village of Lidice destroyed on 9 June, 1942: 199 male residents executed, 95 children taken from their families and 195 women arrested.