The Holocaust in the Sudetenland
Date | 1938–1945 |
---|---|
Location | Reichsgau Sudetenland |
Target | Jews |
Organised by | Nazi Germany |
The Holocaust in the Sudetenland resulted in the flight, dispossession, deportation and ultimately death of many of the 24,505 Jews living in the Reichsgau Sudetenland, an administrative region of Nazi Germany established from former Czechoslovak territory annexed after the October 1938 Munich Agreement. Due to harassment and violence, including during Kristallnacht (9–10 November 1938), ninety percent of the Jews had already left the Sudetenland by mid-1939. The remaining Jews were subject to property confiscation and eventually deportation. During the later years of the war, tens of thousands of Jews and non-Jews were forced laborers in a network of concentration camps in the Sudetenland.
After the war, Jewish communities in the former Sudetenland suffered losses due to the discrimination against German-speaking Jews under the postwar Czechoslovak government, but were partially replenished by arrivals from Carpathian Ruthenia.
Background
Before 1918, the German-majority parts of the
Unhappy with their minority status despite relatively generous minority rights, Germans in Czechoslovakia started a movement for greater national autonomy. The resurgence of ethnic nationalism based on the idea of Volksgemeinschaft ("people's community") led to an increase in antisemitism as Jews were not deemed members of the national community.[4][5] Economic difficulties in the mid-1930s caused an increase in support for the Sudeten German Party (SdP) of Konrad Henlein. A pro-Nazi party, SdP opposed liberalism, democracy, Slavs and Jews.[6] Funded by the Nazi Party, it won two-thirds of the German vote in the 1935 Czechoslovak parliamentary election and about ninety percent in the 1938 Czechoslovak local elections.[7] Prior to 1938, however, the SdP had emphasized the conflict between Czech and German nationalism rather than antisemitism.[8]
Annexation and flight
In September 1938, Henlein formed the
On 30 September 1938, the
Many Jews who had not already fled, often those elderly or with significant property that they did not wish to abandon, were visited by the Gestapo shortly after the German invasion and forced to sign papers promising to leave within six days. The authorities were encouraged to search the residence of all Jews for "subversive material" and "stolen goods".[8][14] Many Jews fled with nothing more than personal valuables and sometimes machines from factories that they owned.[15] German authorities sought to use the refugees, who mostly fled to the rump Czechoslovak state, to destabilize that state and increase antisemitism among Czechs.[12][16][17] Some refugees were sent back by the Czechoslovak authorities and had to wait in the no-man's land for their cases to be resolved,[15][18] despite the fact that the Munich Agreement entitled them to retain their Czechoslovak citizenship.[19]
During
On 14 March 1939, the
Aryanization
On 14 October 1938, Hermann Göring issued an edict for the Aryanization of Jewish property, which affected the entire Reich, including the newly annexed Sudetenland. Within weeks, Jews were forbidden from raising the German flag, from working as journalists, and from operating retail stores. Following Kristallnacht, they were required to pay a 20% tax on all assets, and in December, the Nuremberg Laws were extended to the Sudetenland. Jews were required to declare their assets by 31 January 1939. In 1930, Jews had owned some four to five thousand businesses in the Sudetenland, providing employment for many residents in the region. Fleeing Jews abandoned hundreds of them, which were immediately taken over by the authorities and turned over to new owners. Nevertheless, the transition caused considerable chaos;[24] in Teplitz-Schönau, where Jews had owned 89 of the 213 businesses,[15] 200 stores were empty and work in most of the expropriated businesses must have ceased.[34]
Aryanization was characterized by conflicts between local Sudeten Germans and the Reich Ministry of the Economy : the former wanted to preserve jobs at Jewish-owned factories, while the latter sought to use Aryanization in order to leverage the Sudeten economy for war production. As a result, local Germans were mostly allowed to Aryanize factories in the textile and food sectors, which were mostly outdated, while Germans from elsewhere were invited to take over factories in industries important to the war effort. This result fueled resentment to the Sudeten Germans, who had hoped to reap the profits of the expropriations,[35] which they considered just recompense for perceived suffering under the Czechoslovak government.[25] Despite their disappointment, however, the Sudeten Germans had benefited from Aryanization,[25][31] which their widespread participation in local government had accelerated.[31] The total annexation of the Sudetenland to the Reich and the flight of the Jewish population enabled the process to proceed faster than elsewhere, and it was mostly complete by the end of 1939.[31] The total amount of money obtained by Aryanization was estimated at 1 billion Reichsmarks,[35] worth around USD$250 million at the time ($5.48 billion in 2023 dollars).[36][37]
Forced labor
By 1939, Jews over the age of 14 were required to work at forced labor projects, even though their numbers were not enough to stem the local labor shortage. Due to low numbers, not a single forced-labor camp for local Jews was set up in the Sudetenland, despite the extensive systems that existed elsewhere.
In 1942, the first
Thousands of Jews arrived at these camps in the last year of the war, both Hungarian Jews deported during the summer of 1944 and other Jews from the evacuation transports from
Concentration and deportation
In 10 May 1939, a law was passed to encourage landlords to evict Jewish tenants. Later that year, the system of "
By June 1940, there were 1,886 Jews in the Reichsgau, and by April 1942 this had dropped further to 1,614.
Aftermath
Although postwar Czechoslovak law deemed all Aryanization transactions invalid,[54] Jewish survivors faced difficulties in regaining their property. The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia opposed restitution, preferring instead to nationalize businesses.[55] Those who had declared German nationality on the 1930 census were stripped of their citizenship and had to reapply for it; in the meantime, they were completely ineligible for restitution or any social benefits, leaving many mired in poverty.[56]
About ninety percent of the three million Germans from the Czech lands were deported during the
Even though [German-speaking Jews] were harshly persecuted under the Hitler regime … they — with few exceptions — are now suffering again because they are largely considered "Germans" and treated as such. Nobody acknowledges that nearly all of these Jews were in concentration camps or labor camps and that all those families lost most of their relatives in the gas chambers.
Jewish communities in the former Sudetenland were repopulated
Notes
- ^ The territory of Nazi Germany in 1938, before its annexations.[9]
- ^ Geltungsjuden (lit. 'Jews under the law') if they belonged to the Jewish faith after 15 September 1935, were married to a Jew as of 15 September 1935, or were offspring of Rassenschande (illegal race mixing) born after 31 July 1936. If a person had two Jewish ancestors but did not fit the above criteria, they were a Mischling (lit. 'mix-ling') of the first degree.[26] Second-degree Mischlinge were those with one Jewish grandparent.[27] Geltungsjuden had the same status as others deemed Jews by the Nazis, but were often protected from deportation by being a child younger than fifteen with a non-Jewish parent.[28]
References
Citations
- ^ a b Osterloh 2015, p. 70.
- ^ Kocourek 1997, p. 89.
- ^ Osterloh 2015, p. 68.
- ^ Osterloh 2015, p. 69.
- ^ Gruner 2015, p. 100.
- ^ a b Osterloh 2015, p. 71.
- ^ Capoccia 2005, pp. 78–79, 105.
- ^ a b Osterloh 2015, p. 75.
- ^ a b c Osterloh 2015, p. 73.
- ^ a b Gruner 2019, p. 35.
- ^ Osterloh 2015, pp. 73–74.
- ^ a b Osterloh 2015, p. 78.
- ^ Osterloh 2015, pp. 74–75.
- ^ Kocourek 1997, pp. 86–87.
- ^ a b c Kocourek 1997, p. 87.
- ^ Gruner 2015, p. 103.
- ^ a b c Kocourek 1997, p. 92.
- ^ Frankl 2014, p. 549.
- ^ Frankl 2014, pp. 549–550.
- ^ a b c d Osterloh 2015, p. 76.
- ^ a b c Kocourek 1997, p. 90.
- ^ a b Čapková 2014, p. 69.
- ^ Kocourek 1997, pp. 88–89.
- ^ a b Osterloh 2015, pp. 81–82.
- ^ a b c Horváth 2013, p. 46.
- ^ Heydt 2014, p. 65.
- ^ Blau 1950, p. 162.
- ^ Heydt 2014, pp. 65, 74.
- ^ Gruner 2019, p. 38.
- ^ Gruner 2015, pp. 103–104.
- ^ a b c d Osterloh 2015, p. 88.
- ^ Frankl 2014, p. 551.
- ^ Osterloh 2015, p. 80.
- ^ Osterloh 2015, p. 82.
- ^ a b c Osterloh 2015, p. 84.
- ^ Foreign Claims Settlement Commission 1968, p. 655.
- ^ 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved 29 February 2024.
- ^ a b Osterloh 2015, p. 85.
- ^ a b c Osterloh 2015, p. 86.
- ^ Kocourek 1997, p. 96.
- ^ a b c d Osterloh 2015, p. 87.
- ^ Huebner 2009, p. 560.
- ^ a b Fritz 2009, p. 567.
- ^ Zegenhagen 2009, p. 700.
- ^ Blatman 2011, p. 103.
- ^ Blatman 2011, p. 144.
- ^ Fritz 2009, p. 569.
- ^ Osterloh 2015, pp. 84–85.
- ^ Kocourek 1997, p. 93.
- ^ Kocourek 1997, pp. 93–94.
- ^ Kocourek 1997, p. 97.
- ^ Kocourek 1997, p. 98.
- ^ Kocourek 1997, pp. 99–100.
- ^ Bazyler et al. 2019, pp. 107–108.
- ^ Gerlach 2017, pp. 192, 244.
- ^ Čapková 2018, pp. 69, 71, 81.
- ^ Čapková 2018, p. 69.
- ^ Čapková 2018, pp. 74–75.
- ^ Čapková 2018, pp. 79–80.
- ^ Čapková 2018, p. 73.
- ^ Gerlach 2017, p. 95.
- ^ a b Čapková 2014, p. 66.
- ^ Čapková 2018, pp. 67–68.
Sources
Books
- ISBN 978-0-19-092306-8.
- ISBN 9780674059191.
- Čapková, Kateřina (2014). "Dilemmas of Minority Politics: Jewish Migrants in Postwar Czechoslovakia and Poland". In Ouzan, Françoise S.; Gerstenfeld, Manfred (eds.). Postwar Jewish Displacement and Rebirth: 1945-1967. Leiden, Boston: Brill. pp. 63–75. ISBN 978-90-04-27777-9.
- Capoccia, Giovanni (2005). Defending Democracy: Reactions to Extremism in Interwar Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-8038-4.
- OCLC 1041397012.
- Gerlach, David W. (2017). ISBN 978-1-107-19619-3.
- ISBN 978-1-78238-444-1.
- Gruner, Wolf (2019). ISBN 978-1-78920-285-4.
- Heydt, Maria van der (2014). ""Wer fährt denn gerne mit dem Judenstern in der Straßenbahn?" Die Ambivalenz des "geltungsjüdischen" Alltags 1941 bis 1945" [The Ambivalence of the Everyday Life of "Geltungsjuden" from 1941 to 1945]. In Löw, Andrea; Bergen, Doris L.; Hájková, Anna (eds.). Alltag im Holocaust: Jüdisches Leben im Großdeutschen Reich 1941-1945 [Everyday Life during the Holocaust: Jewish Lives in the Greater German Reich, 1941–1945] (in German). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GmbH. pp. 65–79. ISBN 978-3-486-73567-3.
- Horváth, Franz S. Z. (2013). "Minorities into Majorities: Sudeten German and Transylvanian Hungarian Political Elites as Actors of Revisionism before and during the Second World War". In Cattaruzza, Marina; Dyroff, Stefan; Langewiesche, Dieter (eds.). ISBN 978-1-299-77730-9.
- ISBN 978-1-78238-444-1.
Journals
- Blau, Bruno (1950). "The Jewish Population of Germany 1939-1945". Jewish Social Studies. 12 (2): 161–172. JSTOR 4464869.
- Čapková, Kateřina (2018). "Between Expulsion and Rescue: The Transports for German-speaking Jews of Czechoslovakia in 1946". ISSN 8756-6583.
- Frankl, Michal (2014). "Prejudiced Asylum: Czechoslovak Refugee Policy, 1918–60". S2CID 159781378.
- Kocourek, Ludomír (1997). "Das Schicksal der Juden im Sudetengau im Licht der erhaltenen Quellen" [The Fate of the Jews in Sudetengau in Light of the Surviving Sources]. Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente (in German) (4): 86–104. CEEOL 155844.
Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos — open access
- Huebner, Todd (2009). "Flossenbürg Main Camp". In ISBN 978-0-253-35328-3.
- Fritz, Ulrich (2009). "Flossenbürg Subcamp System". In ISBN 978-0-253-35328-3.
- Zegenhagen, Evelyn (2009). "Gross-Rosen Subcamp System". In ISBN 978-0-253-35328-3.
Further reading
- Adam, Alfons (2013). "Die Arbeiterfrage soll mit Hilfe von KZ-Häftlingen gelöst werden": Zwangsarbeit in KZ-Außenlagern auf dem Gebiet der heutigen Tschechischen Republik ["The labor question should be solved with the help of concentration camp prisoners": Forced labor in the subcamps on the territory of what is now the Czech Republic] (in German). Metropol-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-86331-083-7.
- Lowy, Paul (2013). "La destruction des communautés juives des Sudètes. L'exemple de Teplitz-Schönau". Revue d'Histoire de la Shoah (in French). 199 (2). Cairn: 411. ISSN 2111-885X.
- Osterloh, Jörg (2006). Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung im Reichsgau Sudetenland 1938–1945 [The Nazi Persecution of Jews in Reichsgau Sudetenland, 1938–1945] (in German). Munich: Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag. ISBN 978-3-486-57980-2.
- Osterloh, Jörg (2010). Nacionálněsocialistické pronásledování Židů v říšské župě Sudety v letech 1938-1945 [The Nazi Persecution of Jews in the Sudetenland, 1938–1945] (in Czech). Argo. ISBN 978-80-257-0213-0.
- Osterloh, Jörg (2010). Nacionálněsocialistické pronásledování Židů v říšské župě Sudety v letech 1938-1945 [The Nazi Persecution of Jews in the Sudetenland, 1938–1945] (in Czech). Argo.
- Zimmermann, Volker (1999). Die Sudetendeutschen im NS-Staat: Politik und Stimmung der Bevölkerung im Reichsgau Sudetenland (1938-1945) [The Sudeten Germans in the Nazi State: Politics and Mood of the Population of Reichsgau Sudetenland (1938–1945)] (in German). Essen: Klartext. ISBN 978-3-88474-770-4.