The Holocaust in Bohemia and Moravia

List of victims on the wall of Pinkas Synagogue in Prague, Brumel–Fink

The Holocaust in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia resulted in the deportation, dispossession, and death of 80,000 Jews. It was carried out by Nazi Germany, which was occupying the country.

Before the Holocaust, the Jews of Bohemia were the most assimilated and integrated Jewish community in Europe; antisemitism was lower than elsewhere. The first anti-Jewish regulations were implemented during the Second Czechoslovak Republic following the Munich Agreement and the German occupation of the Sudetenland. Following the German invasion and occupation of the rest of the Czech lands, additional anti-Jewish measures followed, pushed forward both by the Nazi authorities and by the Czech puppet administration. Jews were stripped of their employment and property, required to perform forced labor, and subject to various discriminatory regulations.

Some 30,000 Jews, from the pre-invasion population of 118,310, managed to emigrate before it was banned in October 1941. The first deportation of Jews was in October 1939 as part of the Nisko Plan. In October 1941, mass deportations of Protectorate Jews commenced, first to Łódź Ghetto, in the Warthegau. From November, the transports departed for Theresienstadt Ghetto in the Protectorate, a transit ghetto which was, for most, a temporary stopping-point before deportation to ghettos, extermination camps, and other killing sites farther east. By the end of 1944, only 6,795 Jews lived in the Protectorate (outside of Theresienstadt Ghetto), most of them in mixed marriages.

Many Jews faced harassment and discrimination in postwar Czechoslovakia if they spoke German as their first language. Today the Holocaust is commemorated in various memorials and in literature such as that written by the Czech Holocaust survivors Jiří Weil and Arnošt Lustig.

Background[]

Jewish Quarter of Třebíč, Moravia, recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site

The first Jewish communities in Bohemia and Moravia were probably established by the eleventh century, under the rule of the Přemyslid dynasty. Medieval Jewish communities were established in Prague, Brno, Cheb, Příbram, Pilsen, Jihlava, Znojmo, and Olomouc, among other places. However, Jews were expelled from most of the royal cities in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. From 1526, Bohemia and Moravia were under the rule of the Habsburg Monarchy. In 1557, Ferdinand I expelled the Jews from Bohemia (but not Moravia), but this decree was never fully enforced. In 1623, following the crushing of the Bohemian Revolt, Ferdinand II granted Jews full freedom of residence. This was reversed with the Familiants Law (in force 1726–1848) which restricted Jewish settlement to 8,541 families in Bohemia and 5,106 families in Moravia, while limiting marriages to one son per family. Some Jews emigrated while others dispersed to small villages to evade the restrictions.^[1] In the nineteenth century, the Czech National Revival agitated for autonomy for the Czech-speaking majority.^[2] During the 1890s, most Jews were German-speaking and considered themselves Germans.^[3][4][5]

Following World War I, the Czech lands (including the border Sudetenland, which had a German majority) became part of the new country of Czechoslovakia.^[2] By the 1930s, German-speaking Jews had been numerically overtaken by assimilated Jews speaking Czech;^[6] Zionism also made inroads among the Jews of the periphery (Moravia and the Sudetenland).^[7] In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, thousands of Jews came to Prague and other large cities in Bohemia and Moravia from small villages and towns.^[8][1] Of the 10 million inhabitants of pre-1938 Bohemia and Moravia, Jews composed only about 1% (117,551). Most Jews lived in large cities such as Prague (35,403 Jews, who made up 4.2% of the population), Brno (11,103, 4.2%), and Moravská Ostrava (6,865, 5.5%).^[9]

Antisemitism in the Czech lands was lower than elsewhere and strongly opposed by the national founder and first president, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1850–1937),^[10][11] while secularism among both Jews and non-Jews facilitated integration.^[12] Nevertheless, there had been isolated cases of anti-Jewish rioting during the birth of the Czechslovak republic in 1918 and 1920.^[13][10][14] Following a steep decline in religious observance in the nineteenth century, most Bohemian Jews were indifferent to religion,^[15] although this was less true in Moravia.^[16] The Jews of Bohemia had the highest rate of intermarriage in Europe;^[17] between 1928 and 1933, 43.8% married out of the faith compared to 30% in Moravia.^[3][18] Unlike in Nazi Germany, the high rate of intermarriage continued after 1933, until the 1939 invasion.^[18] The high rate of integration—Czech Jews were the most integrated community in Europe—led to difficulties identifying Czech Jews for their later deportation and murder.^[19]

Second Czechoslovak Republic[]

German occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939

During the mid-1930s, Czechoslovakia accepted thousands of German (and Austrian, after the Anschluss) Jews fleeing persecution, although right-wing politics eventually led to immigration restrictions and an end to racial persecution as a reason for seeking asylum.^[20][21] Some ten thousand Austrian refugees were refused entry in 1938, and Polish Jews deported from Austria were shuttled to the Polish border.^[22] Since the mid-1930s,^[20] antisemitism was on the rise in Czechoslovakia. Some newspapers began to praise Der Stürmer.^[23][24] In February 1938, many Jews with Polish citizenship, including long-term residents, were expelled to Poland from Moravská Ostrava.^[25]

In September 1938, the Munich Agreement resulted in the annexation of the Sudetenland to Nazi Germany. Germany expelled Jews from the newly annexed territory, causing a surge in Jewish refugees and contributing to a rise in antisemitism.^[26] The right-wing government of the Second Czechoslovak Republic was increasingly under pressure from Germans—both its own German citizens and the external Nazi regime—and coped through accommodation.^[23][24] Most of the 28,000 Jews living in the Sudeten areas annexed to Germany were expelled or fled into Czechoslovakia following Munich and Kristallnacht. The authorities tried to prevent them from crossing the border even though the Munich Agreement gave Sudeten Jews the option to retain their Czechoslovak citizenship. Some of the refugees had to wait for days in no-man's land.^[27][28] By December 1938, 15,186 Jewish refugees (including those expelled from the Sudetenland) were living in the remaining Czech territory,^[26] along with 99,000 non-refugees.^[29]

In January 1939, Jews who had immigrated to Czechoslovakia after 1914 (including naturalized citizens) were ordered to be deported from the country. Fourteen thousand eventually left, saving their lives.^[30] Meanwhile, Jews were excluded from Czech professional associations,^[31] state hospitals dismissed Jewish doctors, and Jewish army officers were put on leave. German professional and educational institutions dismissed Jewish teachers and lecturers, while German newspapers laid off their Jewish reporters.^[24] According to historian Wolf Gruner, the Second Republic's persecution of Jews "were independent developments influenced by radical Czech circles, and had little to do with any direct pressure imposed by Hitler".^[30]

German occupation[]

German troops greeted by civilians making Nazi salutes in  [cs], Brno, 16 March 1939

On 14 March 1939, the Slovak State declared independence with German support. Carrying out plans made since October 1938, Germany invaded the Czech rump state, establishing the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. This nominally autonomous protectorate was partially annexed into the Greater German Reich.^[32] In the Protectorate, ethnic Germans were granted Reich citizenship and were accountable only to German authorities. Czechs and Jews were counted as Protectorate subjects, a second-class status, and were governed by the Czech puppet administration (in practice, under the control of the Reich Protector).^[33] The Czech administration operated under Prime Minister Alois Eliáš (from April) and President Emil Hácha,^[34] both of whom were conservative Catholics who approved anti-Jewish measures while retaining contact with the Czechoslovak government-in-exile. However, its justice minister, Jaroslav Krejčí, was known for his pro-Nazi sentiments. In March, Hácha formed the National Partnership, a political organization to which 98.5% of the adult male Protectorate citizens would belong (women and Jews were forbidden from joining).^[35] The German administration was controlled by Konstantin von Neurath, former foreign minister of Germany, and Karl Hermann Frank, formerly the Deputy Chairman of the Sudeten German Party.^[34]

At the time of the annexation, there were at least 118,310 Jews living in 136 recognized communities in the Protectorate.^[36][34]

Persecution of Jews[]

The gradual persecution of Jews created a "ghetto without walls", in the words of Czech historian Miroslav Kárný, and created the conditions which enabled their deportation and murder later on.^[19]

Initial measures[]

Interior of the Olomouc Synagogue, burned on 16 March 1939

During the annexation, anti-Jewish riots occurred in a number of locations. In Olomouc, Vsetín, and Ostrava, synagogues were burned by German and Czech rioters. In Iglau (Jihlava) Jews were prohibited from riding streetcars and forced to clear snow from the streets. Prague Jewish organizations were shut down or taken over by the Gestapo, which also arrested thousands of left-wing activists and German refugees. More than a thousand were deported to concentration camps in the Reich; most of these were Jews.^[36]

The Czech government largely remained in place and had considerable autonomy.^[37] In the Protectorate, anti-Jewish persecutions were carried out by several agencies, including the Office of the Reich Protector, the Gestapo, and the Czech government.^[38] At once, the definition of the Nuremberg Laws was applied to relationships between Jews and "German-blooded" people, forbidding relationships between them. Czech–Jewish marriages were initially still allowed, the regulation of such was left to the Protectorate government.^[18]

The Eliáš government drafted the first ordinance on anti-Jewish legislation, which would have defined a "Jew" as someone with four Jewish grandparents who had belonged to a Jewish community after 1918. Jews would be barred from working in public agencies, corporations, schools, administrations, courts, stock exchanges, the arts, and medicine. However, the Reich Protector's office dismissed the proposal as too mild in its definition of "Jew", and therefore issued its own resolution on 21 June.^[39] Part of the Czech government's calculation in arguing for a stricter definition of "Jew" was to reduce the amount of Jewish property that would be transferred to Germans as a result of Aryanization.^[40] A second wave of synagogues—in Brno, Olomouc, Uherský Brod, Chlumec, Náchod, Pardubice, and Ostrava—were burned in May and June.^[39]

Emigration[]

A passport used by a Jew to escape Prague on the last train before the German invasion

During the first weeks of the occupation, some Jews fled illegally to Poland.^[41] The growing poverty among Jews caused by the measures against them prevented their emigration, which was banned by the Security Service in May 1939. Therefore, the initial plan was not to create a Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Prague, as there was for Austria. The office was set up later on 15 July for the purpose of leveraging the property of Czech Jews to help the emigration of German Jews, and initially only controlled Prague and its surroundings.^[42] Another office was considered for Brno.^[43]

Fewer Jews were able to escape from the Protectorate than from prewar Germany or Austria, due to the narrower window for legal emigration (July 1939 to September 1941). According to official figures, 26,111 emigrated legally by 15 July 1943.^[41] German historian Wolf Gruner estimates that before October 1941, 25,000 Jews managed to emigrate from Bohemia and Moravia.^[44] Benjamin Frommer's estimate is that 14,000 Jews left before the Nazi invasion in 1939, and 30,000 legally left the country afterwards. Some of these were killed in countries that were later occupied by Germany. An unknown number (considered much smaller) fled illegally to Poland in 1939 or to Axis-aligned Slovakia and Hungary.^[45] Jewish emigration was banned throughout the Reich on 16 October 1941.^[46]

Nisko Plan[]

Stolperstein for Zikmund Slatner, deported from Ostrava to Nisko.

The outbreak of World War II with the September 1939 invasion of Poland dramatically changed the situation of Czech Jews.^[47] The Nisko Plan was a scheme developed shortly after the September Campaign to concentrate Jews in the Lublin District, at the time the most remote area of German-occupied Europe and adjacent to the partition line with the Soviet Union.^[48] SS leaders were planning to deport destitute 300,000 Jews from the Reich,^[49][50] including 70,000 to 80,000 from the Kattowitz area (annexed from Poland) and the Moravská Ostrava region in the Protectorate.^[47] For this purpose, a census was carried out which found that there were 90,147 Jews residing in the Protectorate as of 1 October 1939, 28,000 fewer than in March.^[51]

On 18 October 1939, 901 men were deported from Ostrava to Nisko, in Poland. Border police and SS personnel accompanied the transport,^[52] and Adolf Eichmann personally met it in Nisko.^[51] The second transport carried 400 Jewish men from Ostrava and was accompanied by protests by local Czechs. The third took 300 men from Prague on 1 November, and was also protested by Czechs. It was turned around in Sosnowiec when the Nisko Plan was cancelled by SS chief Heinrich Himmler,^[53][54] because it conflicted with the higher-priority goal of resettling Volksdeutsche in the Warthegau and West Prussia.^[55] Transports were expected to resume in early 1940, but Reinhard Heydrich postponed them on 19 February in favor of deporting Polish Jews from the annexed areas.^[56] In April 1940, the camp was dissolved and the surviving prisoners, of which there were about 460 from the Protectorate, allowed to return home.^[57][58] Another 123 Jews who had been deported in the Nisko operation returned to Czechoslovakia with Svoboda's Army.^[58]

Aryanization[]

Furniture confiscated from deported Jews in a synagogue, 1944

Hermann Göring ordered that all Aryanization in the Protectorate take place with the approval of the , to avoid chaotic property transfers as had taken place in Vienna after the Anschluss. As a result, Jews were forbidden to sell companies and real estate. About 30,000 Jewish-owned businesses existed in the Protectorate, and Czechs and Germans fought over who would have the right to take them over. The Germans were favored and Aryanization was even extended to businesses owned by Czechs, leading Hácha to complain of "Germanization under the cloak of Aryanization".^[59] Couples in which one partner was Jewish, especially those in which the other was an ethnic German, faced pressure to divorce. Some opted for a "paper divorce" in order to preserve the family property under the non-Jewish partner's name, or the job of the non-Jewish partner, while continuing to live together. However, the divorce removed the Jewish partner's exemption from deportation.^[60]

On 25 March, the Reich Interior Ministry decided to delegate "whether and what measures it undertakes against the Jews" to the Protectorate government. In the following weeks, professional associations of merchants, lawyers and physicians took advantage of the antisemitic mood to expel their Jewish members. By June, the umbrella Jewish organization reported that many middle-class Jews had lost their jobs.^[61] The , a social welfare organization, was allowed to reopen on 6 April and provided relief to many unemployed Jews as well as refugees. By the summer of 1939 Jews were banned from any job except manual labor. At the time, 25,458 men and 24,028 women were of working age (18–45 years).^[62] On 10 August, they were banned by order of the Reich Protector from all voting rights and public office, all positions involving the media and public opinion, and all Czech associations.^[43] On 23 October, another order from the Reich Protector barred Jews from salaried employment.^[56]

Further employment regulations were announced on 26 January 1940, with the result that Jews were banned from all management positions among other provisions. Increasing numbers of Jews were without employment or income.^[63][56] Jews were required to register their business assets on 7 February and personal property on 16 March. The next two measures came from the Czech government: on 19 March Jews were excluded from the unemployment system and had to register at labor offices to receive unemployment assistance. Instead, they were recruited into locally organized forced labor, such as burning trash. On 24 April they were barred from working in law, education, pharmacies, medicine, or publishing.^[64]

Restrictions on civil rights[]

Jews wearing yellow badges in Prague, c. 1942

In January 1940, the remit of the Prague Central Office was extended to the entire Protectorate, and in March it obtained control of all Jewish communities, to which everyone classified as Jews according to the Nuremberg Laws were ordered to report even if they were not members of the Jewish community. Jews' freedom of movement was restricted with a curfew imposed after 20:00, and they were barred from visiting cinemas and theaters by the Hácha government. Protectorate identification cards for Jews were stamped with the red letter "J".^[65] Jews were also restricted from shopping except a few hours of the day in mid-1940, and barred from schools on 7 August—both actions taken by the Czech government.^[66][67]

In late 1940, Jewish-owned housing was registered in Prague and Brno, by the Central Office. By early the next year, Jews were being concentrated into " [de; fr; he]" (lit. 'Jew houses') in Prague, a joint initiative by the city government, the Central Office, and the Nazi Party. Simultaneously, Jews were resettled from the districts to large cities.^[68] The National Partnership demanded further ghettoization of Jews; in October 1941, Hácha presented such demands to the Reich Protector. These were rejected as the Germans were already planning the systematic deportation of Jews.^[69] In November 1940, the Hácha government passed a ban on marriages between ethnic Czechs and Jews. However, the Nazi authorities repeatedly refused to publish the decree; it did not go into effect until March 1942.^[70]

Throughout 1940, the Reich Protector received many petitions to require Jews to wear special markings such as a yellow star or armband, including from the , a Czech antisemitic association. However, even though Jews were marked in the former Polish regions annexed into Nazi Germany, this was not approved for Bohemia and Moravia.^[71][72] The yellow star was introduced in Bohemia and Moravia at the same time as in Germany, in September 1941.^[69] Later that month, Heydrich was appointed Reich Protector and deposed the Czech government under Eliáš, replacing him with the hardliner Krejči.^[73] One of Heydrich's first actions as Reich Protector was to shut down all synagogues because of an alleged whispering campaign.^[69]

Forced labor[]

Forced labor of roadbuilding, 1943

Plans for the employment of the Protectorate's Jews in forced labor in the event of war were drawn up before the occupation of the territory, in February 1939. It was expected to employ Jews in road-building and quarries, although what agency would be responsible was not decided.^[74] However, in mid-1940, despite the increasing unemployment among Jews, the central authorities did not introduce any generalized forced labor program. Instead, municipalities took the initiative and developed a forced labor program similar to that in Germany and Austria, but organized locally. In early July 1940, the town of Holešov requested permission to conscript its Jews into forced labor. A report in magazine encouraged other localities to follow this practice. By July, 60% of Jewish men in the Protectorate were employed in forced labor projects and the remainder in independent employment that had not yet been barred to them. Unlike in Germany and Austria, Jews were not segregated from Czechs in forced labor because both were considered equally inferior.^[75]

Forced labor deployments peaked in May 1942, at which point 15,000 men and 1,000 women were deployed. The numbers declined thereafter due to deportations to Theresienstadt Ghetto.^[76]

At least 39 subcamps were located in the Protectorate. Tens of thousands of Jews and non-Jews were employed there, including many Polish and Hungarian Jews who had been deported there.^[77]

Relations with Czech population[]

The majority of Czechs felt sympathy for Jews and did not collaborate with Nazis, which was repeatedly emphasized in the wartime Western press.^[78] In 1940, an antisemitic faction took over the leadership of the National Partnership and issued decrees that forbade Czechs from associating with Jews, but many Czechs ignored them and most of the regulations were repealed following a public outcry. Czech acts of defiance against antisemitic decrees, as well as the public protests against the Nisko deportations in 1939, was closely related to their opposition to the German occupation^[79][40] and the idea that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. In addition, Czechs worried that after the Jews were eliminated, the "Final Solution to the Czech Question" would be next.^[40] The Security Service reported that during 1941, "the Czech attitude towards the Jews became a serious problem for the occupation authorities".^[80] However, even some Czech resistance figures published antisemitic articles.^[81]

A minority of Czechs took part in the persecution of Jews.^[81] The Czech fascist newspapers Vlajka and Arijský boj ("Aryan Struggle"—a Czech version of Der Stürmer) were noted for their antisemitic invective and publishing denunciations of Jews and "Jew-lovers".^[82] Frommer has argued that these newspapers made it easier for some ordinary Czechs to denounce their neighbors, by providing an alternative to the Nazi authorities.^[78] Arijský boj received 60 denunciations daily in October 1941;^[83] such denunciations often resulted in the arrest of Jews breaking the regulations.^[84] Those who sent in denunciations helped enforce the laws by reporting alleged violations.^[85] The Security Service reported that some Czechs tried to help Jews avoid deportation. In 1943, it reported that attitudes had changed and Czechs were grateful that the occupiers rid them of the Jewish population.^[86] The resistance also reported to the government-in-exile that some Czechs believed that the Jews deserved their fate.^[76]

Final Solution[]

Direct transports[]

In the Łódź Ghetto, Jews from Austria, Germany, and Prague are rounded up for deportation to Kulmhof extermination camp, May 1942.^[87]

On 16 or 17 September 1941, Hitler approved a proposal to deport 60,000 Jews from the Reich and the Protectorate to Łódź Ghetto, in the Warthegau.^[88][89] In preparation for the deportation, another census was carried out. By the criteria of the Nuremberg Laws, 88,000 Jews still lived in the Protectorate, 46,800 in Prague. Heydrich, Frank, Horst Böhme, and Eichmann met at Prague Castle on 10 October to finalize deportation plans. They decided that 5,000 Jews would be deported from Prague from 15 October, initially to Nazi ghettos where they would perform forced labor. Upon their deportation, Jews' remaining property would be expropriated.^[69] Due to overcrowding in the Łódź Ghetto, and partly to make space for the new arrivals, Kulmhof extermination camp was opened in fall 1941.^[90]

Five transports with 1,000 Jews each departed from Prague on 16, 21, 26 and 30 October and 3 November, arriving in Łódź the next day.^[69][91] These transports were organized by the Central Office and the Gestapo, with the latter responsible for drawing up transport lists.^[69] Hitler designated Minsk and Riga as the destination for subsequent transports due to overcrowding in Łódź; on 16 November, a transport took Jews from Brno to Minsk.^[92][69] Most of the deportees to Łódź were elderly,^[93] and many perished from the poor living conditions in the ghetto. Others died in labor camps in western Poland or after deportation to the extermination camps at Kulmhof, Majdanek and Auschwitz; only around 250 people survived. From the transport to Minsk, about 750 of the deportees were murdered in a mass execution on 27–29 July 1942; only 12 returned after the war.^[94]

Following the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich on 27 May 1942, martial law was declared in the Protectorate. On 10 June, 1,000 Jews were deported from Prague; some were removed from the transport at Majdanek and others deported to Ujazdów in the Lublin District, near Sobibór extermination camp;^[76][95][96] only one man survived.^[96] On 27 October 1944, 18 members of the Council of Elders of the Prague Jewish Community were deported directly to Auschwitz; all were killed.^[95][96]

Theresienstadt Ghetto[]

Caricature of Theresienstadt living quarters by Bedřich Fritta

Deportation to Theresienstadt Ghetto, near the border between the Protectorate and Sudetenland, began in November 1941 with a transport of 350 men from Prague. The next month, more than 7,000 people were deported to Theresienstadt, from Prague, Pilsen, Brno, and other places. From the outset, Theresienstadt was designated as a transit ghetto. The first transport left for Riga on 9 January 1942.^[97][98] At the Wannsee Conference on 20 January, Heydrich announced that Theresienstadt was being prepared as an old-age ghetto for German Jews. The original residents of Theresienstadt had to leave and the Germans among them received compensation from the Central Office out of the fund of confiscated Jewish property.^[97] On 29 May, two days after Heydrich's assassination, Jewish leaders were told to expect the "complete evacuation of the Jews from the Old Reich, the Ostmark, and the Protectorate". Those older than 65 would stay in Theresienstadt while younger Jews would be deported to the East.^[76]

Deportation to Theresienstadt occurred in three main waves. The first, through June 1943, removed almost the entire Jewish population of the Protectorate including 39,395 from Prague and 9,000 from Brno. Between June 1943 and January 1945, another 900 people were deported, in small groups; primarily divorcés and widows of mixed marriages and offspring from such marriages who reached 14 years of age.^[99][100] By the end of 1944, only 6,795 Jews officially lived in the Protectorate, most of them in mixed marriages.^[100][101] About 4,000 of them were deported between January and 16 March 1945 after the mixed marriage exception was cancelled.^[99][102] Along with being subjected to forced labor while imprisoned at Theresienstadt, prisoners were used outside the ghetto for various forced labor projects.^{[citation needed]}

Out of a total of 141,000 Jews deported to Theresienstadt,^[99] 73,608 were from the Protectorate.^[102] Despite the poor living conditions in the ghetto, the inhabitants most feared being called up for a transport, the vast majority of which departed for undisclosed destinations in "the East". Between 9 January 1942 and 28 October 1944, about 60,000 of the Jews from the Protectorate were later deported farther east to various locations in Poland and the Baltics;^[103] a bit less than half (28,368) were deported to Auschwitz of which 3,000 survived.^[104] At the time of liberation, 6,875 Theresienstadt prisoners were from the Protectorate; about 100 Protectorate Jews were on the transport of Jews from Theresienstadt to Switzerland and 700 left the camp in early May.^[105]

Remaining Jews[]

Identity card of Šamšon Milder (b. 1907), marked as abgänging (missing)

Property belonging to deported Jews was collected by the Trustee Office of the Jewish community of Prague, directed by , for resale. At its height, hundreds of Jews worked for this office, gathering such items as clothing, furniture, tableware, and carpets, as well as hundreds of thousands of books and hundreds of pianos.^[97]

A total of 2,803 people considered Jews according to the Nuremberg Laws were reported to have survived in the Protectorate without being deported; of which 820 were of the Jewish faith.^[105] Historians consider that hiding was relatively rare in the Protectorate,^[106][80] due to geographical, demographic, and political factors rather than Czech collaborationism.^[80] The exact number of Jews who survived in hiding in the Protectorate is unknown; H. G. Adler estimated it at 424.^{[106][44][105]} According to one estimate, some 1,100 Jews acquired false papers, but the majority left the Protectorate, either as foreign workers in Germany or else to Slovakia or Hungary; not all of these survived the war. Those who had the greatest chance of surviving was the small group who had never been registered as Jews.^[107]

Aftermath[]

Bohemia and Moravia were liberated by May 1945 by both Western Allies, who arrived in Pilsen on 5 May, and the Red Army, which captured Prague on 9 May 1945 following the Prague Offensive.^[44][108] The total death toll of Jews was about 80,000,^[44][109] 80 percent of the prewar population.^[110] Besides those who emigrated, about fourteen thousand Jews survived in other ways.^[109][111] More than three-quarters of Czechoslovak war victims were Jews who died in the Holocaust.^[44][109] A third of Jews who emigrated returned after the war;^[112] thousands of survivors left the country, especially after the 1948 Communist coup. By 1950, only around 14,000 to 18,000 Jews remained in Czechoslovakia.^[113] Jews who were married to non-Jewish Czechs or came from mixed families were more likely to remain in the country after the war. Such individuals have been prominent in the leadership of postwar Jewish communities.^[114]

Two to three thousand Jews who had identified themselves as Germans on prewar censuses could not regain their Czechoslovak citizenship and were subjected to the same discrimination as ethnic Germans, including deprivation of citizenship, forfeiture of property, and requirement to wear white armbands.^[115][116] Due to discrimination, thousands of Jews applied to leave the country voluntarily.^[117] The deportation of Jews as part of the expulsion of Germans was abruptly halted in September 1946 due to media outrage and objections from the military governor of the American occupation zone of Germany.^[115][118] Some Jews were nevertheless deported.^[119] Following intervention by the , two thousand were eventually able to regain their Czechoslovak citizenship.^[115]

Although postwar laws negated Aryanization, much property was not returned to its Jewish owners and instead nationalized, as demanded in particular by Communists and members of left-wing parties.^[120] Many Holocaust perpetrators and collaborators, including Frank and Pfitzner, were tried before , as part of a purge of collaborators that was one of the strictest in Europe.^[121]

In the 1952 Slánský trial, fourteen Communists (eleven Jewish—including Holocaust survivors) were accused of belonging to a Zionist conspiracy. Eleven of them were executed.^[122][123] As of 2019, about 3,900 Jews live in the Czech Republic.^[124]

Legacy[]

 [cs], a memorial at Praha–Bubny railway station commemorating the deportation of 50,000 Jews via the station to Łódz and Theresienstadt.^[125]

After the 1989 Velvet Revolution which resulted in the fall of the Communist regime, scholarly interest in the Holocaust greatly increased, which many academic theses relating to the Holocaust being published. The interest peaked around 2000 and has declined since.^[126]

The Czech Republic is one of the only countries to have a government office dedicated to post-Holocaust issues.^[127]

Jiří Weil and Arnošt Lustig, both Holocaust survivors, became known for their literature on the event.

The names of 77,297 known victims of the Holocaust from Bohemia and Moravia are written on the walls of Pinkas Synagogue in Prague.^[111]

References[]

Citations[]

Sources[]

Books[]

Book chapters[]

Journal articles[]