My father celebrated the assassination of the Reich Protector at Bulovka. Then he was called to Heydrich’s operating theatre
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Cardiac surgeon Assoc. Prof. Tomáš Honěk was born in Prague on 13 September 1950 into a prominent medical family. His father Alois Honěk was a surgeon and violin maker who, after the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich on 27 May 1942, took part in Heydrich’s treatment in Bulovka as an anaesthesiologist. After the war, he became a primary physician in Karlovy Vary, but in the 1950s he was on a staged trial with physicians in Karlovy Vary and was imprisoned for a year. After release, he worked as a surgeon at the Na Františku Hospital. Tomáš Honěk grew up in an inspiring environment in the centre of Prague, graduating high school in 1968. The family briefly left for Vienna in September 1968 and considered leaving the country, but eventually returned to Czechoslovakia and Tomáš began studying medicine. His studies and career suffered due to his father’s name - he was being rejected early in his career due to suspicions of nepotism. Eventually he landed a job in paediatric cardiac surgery in Prague-Motol where he helped to establish a cardiac centre for adults. He worked in Cuba in the 1980s, completed a fellowship in London after 1989 and also worked in Saudi Arabia. Later, he founded Avicena, a private surgical centre specialising in laser varicose vein surgery. He is married for the second time and has three sons. His elder brother RNDr. Alois Honěk is a prominent entomologist and a secretly ordained priest.
