Jews in Czechoslovakia

1918-1938

Czechoslovakia

• 1918-1938• One of the few states which recognized the Jewish nationality as

equal to all other nationalities in the country• Tomáš Garrique Masaryk – 1st president

– Western-oriented, liberal, and moderate nationalist• Liberal democracy• Industrialised Bohemia and Moravia + less developped Slovakia

and Ruthenia (Subcarpathian Rus)• 3 milion German minority – Sudetenland• Czech and Moravian Jews reformed, quit Yiddish – fruits of

Haskalah• Max Brod: „In the Prague of my youth there were only a few

families that were completely faithful to the Jewish tradition.“

1st Czechoslovak Republic

Franz Kafka• 1883-1924• Born and lived in Prague• All his sisters murdered by Nazis

in concentration camps• Convinced sionist – was fluent in

hebrew and dreamt about the life in the land of Israel

• Burried at the New Jewish Cemetery at Prague 3, Žižkov (Želivského metro stop)

• Max Brod did not respect his last will and published his writings

Max Brod

• 1884-1968

• Leader of the Zionist federation of Bohemia – leading political force during the 1st Republic

• In 1939 fled to Palestine and settled in Tel Aviv

Sigmund Freud

• 1856-1939• Born in Moravia

(Příbor/ Freiberg)• Lived in Vienna• Psychanalysis• Fled Nazis to London in

1938 where he died (euthanasis)

Edmund Husserl• 1859 - 1938• Born in Prostějov in

Moravia• Founder of modern

phenomenology• Got baptized (protestant)• Forced by Nazis to leave

the university where he taught and in 1936 he had to move out of his appartment;

Zionism in the Czech Lands

• 1893 – Prague group Makabee : Jews are a people in their own right

• 1899 – Bar Kochba – Prague Zionist group– Search for the Jewish roots– Established a Jewish Party – entered the

Parliament during the 1st Republic• Poland, Hungary – political parties with

antisemitic programs x not in the Czech Lands

Czech Lands • Hilsner affaire

– Masaryk defended with succes the Jewish victim of a false accusation from a superstitious blood libel (Polna in Moravia)• Inimaginable in Poland or Romania – openely

antisemitic states – Zionism popular here only insofar it meant the mass departure of Jews from Europe

– The only country with a succesful campaign against anti-Semitism

– Masaryk supported Zionism and the Jewish national rights

– Masaryk was as well an unusual statesman in his championing of Jewish national rights in the diaspora

Slovakia• Eastern Ortodox Judaism• Part of Hungarian Jewry• Hasidic influences from Galicia• Bratislava (Poszony, Pressburg) –

famous center of Ortodox Judaism– Great Yeshiva– Hatam Sofer – one of the most

renowned sages of the early 19th century

• Since 1867 general magyarisation– In many Jewish families the parents

conversed in German while the children, who attended Hungarian schools, spoke to each other in Magyar.

• Yiddish survived into the 20th century in the small towns of eastern Slovakia (influence of Galicia)

• Magyarised Jews were very much disliked by the Slovak nationalists

• Slovak antisemitism – close connection between Slovak nationalism and the Catholic church – Jews were identified with the social and national enemy

• Proportionally Jews were more numerous in Slovakia than in the Czech lands

Ruthenia (Subcarpathi

an Rus)

• Peasant Rusyns (Ruthenians)• Hungarian landowners• East Orthodox Jewish communities• Small magyarised Jewish elite + majority yiddish speaking Jews• Hasidism was extremely influential here• Munkacs, Uzhgorod (Ungvar)

Czechoslovakia• 1930: 357 000 Jews – 2% of the population

– The highest proportion in Subcarpathian Rus• Bohemia – nearly 50% of all Jews lived in Prague• Subcarpathian Rus – 80% lived in shtetlekh and villages

– The largest Jewish peasantry, the poorest and the most involved in physical labor of all European Jewries

• Czechoslovakia – a multinational state by definition• Religious and national Jewish identity was legitimate and Jews

were expected to be loyal to Czechoslovakia– Jan Masaryk, 1943, UK: „relations between the Jews and the Czechs

were, in fact, excellent. We knew that when time were hard the Jewish minority would always stand by us. It never let us down.“

1st Czechoslovak Republic• A wave of anti-Jewish feeling swept over East Central Europe

immediately after the WWI– In Czechoslovakia it was felt more seriously in Slovakia and its capital,

Bratislava• Economic prosperity low profile of anti-Semitism• Bohemia and Moravia – Jewish party

– Main languages of young Jews were Czech and Slovak• Slovakia – anti-Zionist Orthodox party „League of Israel“• Hasidic Munkacs (Mukačevo) rebbe in Ruthenia was hostile to Zionism

and to secularizing tendencies• However a large Zionist movement like in Poland never developed here

– The Jewish party did not necessarily promote the Zionist ideas

The Collapse of Czechoslovakia

• 1930´s – Great Depression mass strikes• 1934 – rise of bolshevism – Gottwald: „Not Masaryk but Lenin“ escaped to Russia• 1935 – Konrad Henlein Sudeten German party won elections• Slovakia

– strong influence of the Horthy´s irredentist propaganda– Anti-Czech and anti-state feeling, separatism– Growing anti-Semitism– Radical movements associated with the Catholic church and the more extreme received

support from the Nazi Germany– Tiso – the Prime Minister of autonomous Slovakia, a priest

• The neighbours of Czechoslovakia : antidemocratic regimes– Beck in Poland– Horthy in Hungary– Dolfuss in Austria– Hitler in the Nazi Germany

The Collapse of Czechoslovakia• 1935 – Masaryk abdicated and

recommended Beneš for President• 1937 – Germany added Austria

(„anschluss“)• GB and France did not do anything against this „family

affair“ because they did not want to risk a military conflict with Hitler for the countries in the Central Europe

• 1938 – Sudeten German Party was preparing a military attack of Czechoslovakia as a result, the Czechoslovak army partially

mobilzed and Germany decided to wait Hitler spoke of protecting Germans living out

of the Reich Henlein : „We must make impossible demands

that can not be satisfied“ and provoke Czechoslovak crackdown while avoiding a final agreement

Munich• Chamberlain and a the French

minister of Foreign Affairs decided that Sudeten will be ceded to Germany and gave an ultimate to the Czechoslovak governement• CS refused but finally has been forced to accept

• 1938 – Hitler, Mussolini, Chamberlain and Daladier met in Munich and fully accepted German claims Czechoslovakia was forced to cede Sudeten to Germany, a part of the territory to Poland and a part of Slovakia to Hungary

The Collapse of Czechoslovakia

• March 1939 Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia and a separate Slovak fascist state (in fact a Nazi protectorate)