Robert Reich participated in the Battle of Sokolovo, the Battle of Kiev and the Battle of Dukla. He was a recipient of three Czechoslovak War Crosses, he also received the Soviet Medal for Combat Merit.
Then something happened. According to one version, the unit Reich commanded failed to recognize in time the enemy dressed in Soviet uniforms, probably deserters. According to the other version, Reich refused to go with his men to certain death in an attack against the fortifications without artillery preparation. Either way, he was accused of cowardice by the Soviet authorities. So in December 1944 he "volunteered" to perform special tasks in the rear of the enemy.
He was included in a group of paratroopers sent to Czechoslovak territory by the Soviet headquarters of the partisan movement. The paratroop had the codename Komenský. Six of the paratroopers were Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians, the other three were Czech Germans from the so-called Sudetenland, one paratrooper was a member of the 1st Čs. Army Corps. Robert Reich.
The group parachuted on the night of January 21-22, 1945 near the village of Pohledy in the Svitavsk region, and was denounced and betrayed almost immediately. During one of the firefights with the anti-partisan troops, Robert Reich was shot and captured. Officials of the Brno Gestapo took him to the Kounic dormitories, where he was cruelly tortured and finally executed.
Stolperstein was installed at the entrance to the house where Robert Reich lived in Brno in October 2019.
Do you know other Jewish heroes of the Czechoslovak armies in exile in the East and West? Whom?