Jews in Czechoslovakia

1918-1938

Czechoslovakia

• 1918 – solid BOURGEOISIE – moderate, democratic–Political leaders ANTICLERICAL

• Problem: delineation of borders + minorities• Liberal democracy• Industrialised Bohemia and Moravia + less

developped Slovakia and Ruthenia (Subcarpathian Rus)

• 3 milion German minority – Sudetenland

1st Czechoslovak Republic

Historical Context: Czech Jews

• 1867 Jews emancipated– Acculturation, urbanization, bourgeoisie

• Czech and Moravian Jews reformed or secular, 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.“

• Jews had to choose Czech or German – language of high culture– Choice of German justified antisemitism of nationalists– Delayed assimilation

Historical Context: Czech Jews

• 1890´s – 1918 – increasing influence of Czech– 1918 – Czech as mother tongue for majority of

Jews– Jewish intteligentsia- German

Zionism in the Czech Lands

• Between thw nations situation Zionism• 1893 – Prague group Makabee : „The Jews are

neither Germans nor Slavs, they 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

• Some antisemitism – rather denounced– Small community– W type– Anticlerical intelligentsia– Economic prosperity:

• very developped middle-class• well organized proletariat

• 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– „If I accept Christ, I can not be antisemitic.“

1st Czechoslovak Republic

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• Part of Hungarian Jewry:

– neolog, status quo or orthodox

• E: 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

• Less acculturation• Yiddish

– small towns of eastern Slovakia (influence of Galicia)

• 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.

• Slovak nationalists + catholic church

• Small Slovak bourgeoisie x highly visible Jewish middle class

Ruthenia (Subcarpathi

an Rus)

• Peasant Rusyns (Ruthenians) – like Galicia but less modernization• Hungarian landowners• East Orthodox Jewish communities• Small magyarised Jewish elite + majority yiddish speaking Jews• Hasidism was extremely influential here• 2 middle-sized cities Munkacs, Uzhgorod (Ungvar)

Czechoslovak State and its Jewish Citizens

• 1921: 355 000 Jews by religion (54% Jews by nationality)• 1930: 357 000 Jews – 2,5 % of the population

– The highest proportion in Subcarpathian Rus• Bohemia – nearly 50% of all Jews lived in Prague (4% of inhabitants

of Prague), 31% of inhabitants of Bohemia and Moravia• Slovakia – 12% of inhabitants of Bratislava, 4% of inhabitants of

Slovakia• 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

– Munkacs 43% Jewish– Uzgorod 28% Jewish

Czechoslovak State and its Jewish Citizens

• WWI CZ nationalists neede Jewish support for the creation of CZ state

• Czechoslovakia – a multinational state by definition• Religious and national Jewish identity legitimate• Jews were expected to be loyal to Czechoslovakia –

always supportive– 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.“

Czechoslovak State and its Jewish Citizens

• 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 : Jews accused from support of Bela Kun in 1919

– Slovakia – 1930´s: Jews accused from support of CZ government

• 1930´s growing antisemitism in Sudetenland

Politics & Culture• Economic prosperity low profile of anti-Semitism• Bohemia and Moravia – Jewish (Zionist) party

– Main languages of young Jews were Czech and Slovak– 1929, 1935 entered Parliament

• Slovakia – anti-Zionist Orthodox party „League of Israel“– run independent list in 1925 elections Jewish Party could not enter the

Parliament• Hasidic Munkacs (Mukačevo) rebbe in Ruthenia was hostile to

Zionism and to secularizing tendencies– Collaborated with the CZ Agrarian Party (antisemitic)

• However a large Zionist movement like in Poland never developed here – success caused by multinational character of the state– Zionism as AN ANSWER TO IDENTITY PROBLEMS

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 : Jews werte loyal supporters of CZ state– Radical movements associated with the Catholic church – Extreme R - support from the Nazi Germany

The Collapse of Czechoslovakia• 1935 – Masaryk abdicated and

recommended Beneš for President• 1937 – Germany added Austria

(„anschluss“)• 1938 – Sudeten German Party was

preparing a military attack of Czechoslovakia as a result, the Czechoslovak army

partially mobilized 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

Jews expelled from Sudetenland – first not admitted by the CZ government

Slovak Jews „returned“ to Hungary

The Collapse of Czechoslovakia

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

Slovakia

• 1938 authoritarian regime• FASCIST-LIKE HLINKA GUARD• The loss of territory – Jews a a scapegoat

• 1939 – autonomous• Tiso – Prime Minister, a priest• JEWISH LAW – Jews systematically ousted from the society

+ DEPORTATIONS

Bohemia and Moravia

• Emigration increased• No Jewish law• March 1939 Nazis– Hungary takes over the rest of Ruthenia