Jews in the Czech Lands in Year One: In the Jewish Community, in the State and Among Neighbours. A Return to the First Republic of Czechoslovakia?

Abstract

After the Second World War, the fraction of the Jewish population in the Czech lands that survived the Shoah coped with this tragedy in various ways. The text addresses the main minority strategies: emigration (primarily to Palestine/State of Israel), engagement with the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, unconditional assimilation into the Czech nation (intentional departure from Judaism), the reconstruction of Jewish religious communities and Jewish life in general, seeking solace in faith (especially typical for those repatriating from Carpathian Ruthenia/Transcarpathian Ukraine). It also analyzes the perspectives of these life strategies, the manners in which they were pursued, and both their successes and failures in relation to the previous attitudes of the survivors and their situation following the liberation of Czechoslovakia in May of 1945 (loss of relatives, property, confrontation with the anti-Semitism of individuals as well as the rise of state anti-Semitism). Various rituals were often used as a particular way to collectively cope with the Shoah (celebrations, the unveiling of monuments and memorials to deceased and fallen members of the Jewish minority, and Shoah-themed exhibitions) organized by Jewish religious communities in cooperation with state authorities..

After the Second World War, the fraction of the Jewish population in the Czech lands that survived the Shoah coped with this tragedy in various ways. The text addresses the main minority strategies: emigration (primarily to Palestine/State of Israel), engagement with the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, unconditional assimilation into the Czech nation (intentional departure from Judaism), the reconstruction of Jewish religious communities and Jewish life in general, seeking solace in faith (especially typical for those repatriating from Carpathian Ruthenia/Transcarpathian Ukraine). It also analyzes the perspectives of these life strategies, the manners in which they were pursued, and both their successes and failures in relation to the previous attitudes of the survivors and their situation following the liberation of Czechoslovakia in May of 1945 (loss of relatives, property, confrontation with the anti-Semitism of individuals as well as the rise of state anti-Semitism). Various rituals were often used as a particular way to collectively cope with the Shoah (celebrations, the unveiling of monuments and memorials to deceased and fallen members of the Jewish minority, and Shoah-themed exhibitions) organized by Jewish religious communities in cooperation with state authorities.