Photograph of a map showing the main transit routes for Jewish refugees travelling from Poland via Czechoslovak territory

2015

The photographs in this unique album document the first two years of the revival of Jewish communities in Bohemia and Moravia after the Second World War – one of the little known chapters in the history of Czechoslovakia. Due to its geographical position, post-war Czechoslovakia became a crossroads of hope for thousands of homeless Jews who were fleeing mainly from Poland, but also from Romania, Hungary and the Soviet Union.

Map showing the main transit routes for Jewish refugees travelling from Poland via Czechoslovak territory. (c) JMP

The end of the Second World War did not put an end to the armed conflicts and murders. In Poland a civil war was raging between the Soviet-imposed Communist government and the anti-Communists. Ukrainian nationalist units and various criminal gangs came over from Ukraine to the west. A power vacuum led to an increase in physical attacks on Jewish survivors and returnees. Bloody pogroms broke out in many places, motivated primarily by a reluctance to return stolen property. The largest such pogrom, inspired by rumours of blood libel, took place in the Polish town of Kielce on 4 July 1946, which resulted in the killing of 42 Jews. It is no wonder that many Polish Jews decided to start a new life abroad. Their journey started at the Czechoslovak border.

The underground Zionist organization Bricha initially smuggled activists from Eastern Europe across the Czechoslovak border posing as Greeks with the aim of taking them to ports in southern Europe and from there on to Palestine. After the Kielce pogrom, the migration via Czechoslovak territory turned into a mass escape. Despite protests from Great Britain, the United States, Poland and the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia enabled these refugees to move to DP camps in the western occupation zones of Germany and Austria on condition that none of them would stay in its territory. Transit camps were set up in Náchod, Broumov, Kukleny near Hradec Králové, Prague and Aš with the aim of expediting their movement through Czechoslovakia. The transit of refugees from Hungary and Romania was later facilitated in a similar way. As many as 200,000 Jewish refugees crossed Czechoslovak territory between 1945 and 1950.