The Holocaust in Czechoslavakia


Figure 1.--Very few Czech Jews survived the Holocaust. This very moving photo shows four Jewish boys in Prague during the NAZI occupation of Czechoslovakia, probably early-1942. Other children are standing behind the bench, apparently with the parents of one of the group. Notice the Jewish stars are sewn on suit jackets and sweters, but not shirts and coats. Shortly after the phoograph was taken, at least one of the four boys on the bench (and perhaps the others as well) were sent to the Terezin ghetto. Their families were also sent. Terezin was esentially a transit camp. They were then deported to Auschwitz in Poland where they were murdered in the gas chambers. Click on the image for more information bout the children.

Czechoslovakia was the first non-German country occupied by the Germans. First the Sudetenland was occupied under the Munich Accord (October 1938). Later Hitler ordered the rest of the country occupied in violation of the Munich Agreement (March 1938). Hitler in total violation of the Munich agreement ordered the Wehrmacht to seize the rest of Czechoslovakia--Bohemia and Moravia. German troops marched into Prague on March 15, 1939. Britain and France protested diplomatically, but took no action. The Germans established a "protectorate." The Slovaks succeed from Czechesoslavakia and set up slavishly compliant pro-NAZI state. The Czechs people suffered during the German occupation. Losses during World War II, however, were not as great as in many other countries, especially Poland to the north. The major exception were the Czech Jews. I have little information on actions against the Czech Jews at this time. The Einsatzgruppen which murdered so ruthlessly in Poland and the Soviet Union were to my knowledge not employed in Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia was, however, the foreign country occupied by the NAZIs for the longest period. Few Czech and Slovakian Jews survived. More than 70,000 were killed by the NAZIs. A concentration camp was set up at Thereisenstadt which the NAZIs used as a model camp to show the Red Cross and Western journalists on fact-finding missions. Hitler appointed Heydrich Reichsprotector when he preceived that Neurath was being too lenient. [Michaelis and Schraepler, p. 244.] The SS conducted operations against Slovakian Jews and were assisted by the Slovakian puppet government (March-September 1942).

Czech Jews

A bout 350,000 Jews lived in Czechoslovakia before the NAZIs seized the country after the Allies signed the Munich Agreement with Hitler. About one-third lived in Bohemia and Moravia. Jews in Czechoslovakia had full civil rights, enjoyed the same civil rights and religous freedom as all other Czech citizens. We have few details about Jews in Czechoslvakia, but believe that they were highly assimilated. Note the Jewish boy on the dress page.

Refugees

Czechoslovakia was a democratic state, but with strong under currents of anti-Semitism, especially among Catholic parties and the German population in the Sudetenland. This was to a substantial degree held into check by ythe democratic laws enacted. With the NAZI seizure of power in Germany (1933), Jews began to flee to neigboring countries, including Czechislovkia. This varied over time as NAZI anti-Semetic campaigns varied. Some Jews believed thst there was still hope to coexust with the NAZIs. This changed when the Nuremberg Decrees stripped Jews of their citizenship. We are not sure to what extent the Czech Government permitted Jews to enter the country. We do not know if there were quotas or to what extentJews crossed the border illegally. This was presumably dangerous if they were caught by NAZI authorities. It was also difficult for families with children or eldely parents. We know of no Czech program to assist refugees, although our information is limited. Not all the refugees were Jewish, there were also political refugees. The largest number by fr, hower, were Jews. Czech Jewish organizations made an effort to assist the refugees. Even more Jewish refugees flowed into Czechoslovakia after the Austrian Anschluss (April 1938). Austrian Jews had few options as the Hungarian, Italian, and Swiss borders were basically closed. Some were refused entry, but we do not yey have aood fix on the numbers or Czech immigration poliy. And this substantially increased the length of the border with NAZI Germany. We donnot yet have an accurate count of the total numbers of refugees. The refugee problem increased after Munich and the German seizure of the Sudetenlnd (November 1938). This brought another 15,000–20,000 Jewish refugees into Czechoslovakia. (There were also 140,000 Czech and German refugees.) The German pressure did not stop at the Sudetenland. The Germans forced Czechoslovakia to cede southern Slovakia which was climed by Hungary (November 1938). Slovak officials ordered all foreign and poor Jews from the Slovak side of the new border to move to the area ceded to Hungary. The Hungarians refused to allow some to enter. everal hundred ended up in camps set up on border, Eventually Slovak citizens were allowed to return. Czechoslovak anti-SEmitism was fueled by the NAZI actions and the break diwn of the democratic legal system, especially in Slovakia. This was to a degree moderated by British–French financial grant offered as a sop after deserting Czecoslovakia at Munich. Some of the funds were to be used to assist the Jewish refugees.

Munich (October 1938)

Czechoslovakia was the first non-German targeted by Hitler. The next target was Czecheslovakia which had beeen created by the Versailles Peace Treaty. After the Anchluss, Hitler began to escalate his tirades against Czecheslovakia, claiming that the erhnic Germans in the Sudetenland were being mistreated. The NAZI rearmament program, the remilitarization of the Rhineland and the Anchluss with Austria came as a shock to Czecheslovakia. Even more so, the lack of response from Britain and France. The Czechs who had defensive alliance with France were prepared to fight. Even with the Anchluss, many Europeans chose to see the NAZI actions as domestic German matters. This changed with Hitler's next target--Czecheslovakia. Hitler in 1938 demanded the Sudetenland in Czecheslovakia which had a minority German population. Neville Chamberlin, the British Prime Minister mused how terrible it was that war should be threatened by a "... quarel in a far away country by people of which we know little." A prominent member of the British parliament displayed even more ignoramce when he told the press, "Why should we bother with those gypsies in the Balkans?", meaning the Czechs who were of course not located in the Balkans. In the end, The British and French gave in at talks held in Munich. Chamberlain flew back to London and stepping off the plane waved the agreement signed ny Herr Hitler which he assured the waiting repoters guaranteed "Peace in our time." Churchill was apauled. Most British and French people were releaved. One European leader, Soviet Marshall Stalin, who was not at the conference drew the conclusion that the British and French could not be trusted as potential allies against Hitler. Less well recognized is the impact on the United States. There are many unanswered questions about Munich. Some maintain that if the Allies had honored their treaty obligations that the Wehrmacht would have arrested Hitler rather than gone to war. Others argue that if Hitler had gone to war in 1838, he would have not only overrun France, but the Luftwaffe would have defeated the RAF.

Invasion (March 1939)

Hitler threatened the Czechs with military action on several occassions after Munich. Finally he called elderly President Dr. Emil Hacha to Berlin (March 14). There after midnight Hitler haranged him. Then Göring offered a mocked applogy for having his bombers destroy Prague, but said it would be a good lesson to the British and French. Hacha fainted and had to be revived. He telephoned Prague ordering that there should be no resistance. Göring and Ribbentrop bullied him into signing a paper asking for German interbention. [Black, p. 512.] Thus independent, democratic Czechoslovakia became the NAZI Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Hacha told the Czech people on the radio, "I have entrusted our country to the Fuhrer and have been promised his trust." The Wehrmacht crossed the border and occupied Bohenia and Moravia in one day (March 15). This was a total violation of the Munich Agreement. Slovakia had succeeded the day before and became Hiler's most slavish puppet state. Hungary with Hitler's approval seized Ruthenia. All of Czechoslovakia was now in the NAZI orbit. The Czechs would pay a terrible price. They would be Hitler's last bloodless victory. They would not, however, be his last stunning victory. Along with the Wehrmcht came Einsatzgruppe I Prag, As in Austria SS Einsatzgruppen teams also went into the occupied Czech lands. Eisatzgruppe I Orag was commanded by ??????. It included four Einsatzkommando (Budweis, Prag, Kolin, and Pardubitz).

Occupation

NAZI policies occupation policies in Czechoslovakia varied depending on the individuals ethnic background and the area of Czecheslovakia (the Sudetenland, Bohemia and Moravia, and Slovakia). There were also smaller areas annexed by Poland and Hungary. The Sudetenland was heavily populated by ethnic Germans. The NAZIs were greeted with enthusiam by the ethnic Germans when after Munich, they entered the Sudetenland. As the Sudetenland was incorporated into the Reich, German law immediately became effctive. We note that some Czechs were forcibly removed from the Sudentenland, but we have few details at this time. NAZI policies in Bohemia and Moravia were much more begin that later implemented in Pland, but became more severe as the occupation progressed, especially after the appointment of Reinhard Heydrich as Governor. The Germans created the Protecorate of Bohemia and Moravia were declared a protectorate of the Third Reich. Czech officials were maintaine as figureheads. All were directed by the NAZI appointed governor or Reich Protector, Baron Konstantin von Neurath. German officials manned all the government departments, cabinet ministries. Local German control offices were established throughout the Protecorate. The Gestapo assumed control of the police. One of the first in a series of NAZI decrees was to dimiss Jews from the civil service and made non-citizens. The NAZIs banned Communists. The Communists and Jews who could fled the country. NAZI authorities mobilized labor for the German war effort. Occupation officials established special offices to supervise the management of industries found to be useful for the war effit. Czechs were drafted to work in keys industies such as coal mines, the iron and steel industry, and armaments production. Some conscripts were sent to Germany for work there. Production of consumer goods was shgarply curtailed and production when possible reoriented toward war poduction. While a small country, Czechoslovakia had heavy industry and played an important role in the German war effort. Authorities instituted very strict rationing. The Czechs as the first occupied country, were the first to be drafted for forced labor in Germany. Czech protests in 1941 angered the NAZIs. Hitler appointed Heydrich Reichsprotector when he preceived that Neurath was being too lenient. [Michaelis and Schraepler, p. 244.] Heydrich's assasination by British-trained patriots were the cause of horendous reprisals by the SS. NAZI policies in Slovakia were more benign because the Slovaks were so slavishly supported of the NAZIS. The Slovaks took an active role in assisdting the NAZIs muder the Jewish population.

Regions

Czechoslovakia was dismembered by Jitlr and th NAZIs before World War II. First Hitler seized the Syudetenland as a result of the Munich Conference (October 1938). At the same time Poland seized Teschen. Then Hitler awarded southern aratho-Ruthenia and Slvakia to Hungary (Nobember 1938). Then Hitler invaded Czechslovakia and established gthe Protectorate of Bohenia and Moravia. At the same time, Slovakia declared indepndence which was recognized by the Germans. Capatho-Runenia also declared independence which was not recognized by the Germans. Hungary immediately invaded and annexed the region as well as further incurisons into Slovakia. Most Czech Jews were killed by the Germans, but the killing took diffrent forms and and kccured on a diffrent time table, depending on where the Jews lived.

Sudenteland

The Czechs were forced to cede tThe Sudetenland, the mostly German-speaking border areas of Czech lands, as a result of the British and French abandoing them at Munich (September 1938). The Jews there were thus immediately exposed to the full force of NAZI laws, entailing both persecution and expropriation of their property. A little more than amonth after annexation, the NAZI pogtram--Kristallnacht swept the Reich (November 9-10, 1938). Not yet aware of what they could, the local Nazis were a little slower to join the violence (Novmber 10-11). They proceeded to vandalize synagogues and Jewish shops and homes. The Munich Agreement occurred so quickly that most Sudenten Jews did not have time to escape before the rival of German troops. The approrimately 27,000 Jews (1930 population) soon began escaping across the border. After Kristalnacht, most of the Jews who could escape did so. A German Census reported that there were only about 2,400 Jews left in the Sudentenland. Most were deported to ghettoes set up in Poland or directly to death camps. We do not yet have details on the deportations. Many of the elderly were sent to Thereisenstadt.

Bohenmia and Moravia

German authorities after Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia and set of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (March 1939) at first adopted a mass expulsion policy. The goal was to expel 70,000 Jews within one year. The NAZI exclusion of Jews from Czech society took place at a far more rapid pace than had occurred in Germany. German authirities rounded up from the provinces and herded into Prague. There a quota of 200 was established wjo had to leave the city daily and pay a 'flight' tax. Many had no place to go or the needed documents to enter neigboring countries. " Thy were loaded onto trains and transported to unknown destinations. Many were dumped at borders forced into a no-mans land at the border, unable to enter the neigboring countrie (Hungary and Poland) which did not want more Jews. NAZI regulations prevented Czech Jews from making a livelihood. They were excluded them from professions, Their businesses were shut down and seized. Bank accounts were frozen, meaning stole. Prperty was confiscated. The SS oversaw terror campaigns, including staged anti-Jewish riots and anti-Semitic exhibitions. Jewish children venturing into city parks were beaten. Strict curfews were enforced with heavy fines. NAZI authorities ordered all Jews in Poland and Czechoslovakia concentrated and isolated into ghettos (September 21, 1939). The NAZIs ordered Czech Jews to wear the Star of David. We do not have the exact date, but we believe it is at the same time that Czech Jews were required to wear the yellow stars. The Reich Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia barred virtually all transfer or sale of property by Jews (October 10, 1941). NAZI authorities in Germany completed the legal process of denaturalizing Jews who had left Germany. The Eleventh Decree under the Reich Citizenship Law provided that German Jews living abroad were no longer German subjects (November 25, 1941). The NAZIs had previously terminted Jewish citizenship in 1935 as part of the Nurenberg Laws. The new law provided that all assets of German Jews residing abroad automatically and immediately became property of the Reich. The legal authority for expropriating Jewish property was the primary goal of this measure. It affected not only German Jews in the Reich Protectorate, but in other occupied countries as well.

Slovakia

The NAZIs seized Czechoslovakia and created the Protecorate of Bohemia and Moravia (March 1939). Slovakia succeeded and became a nominally independent German protectorate. It also became a an enthusiastic participant in the Holocacaust. There were before the Munich Conference about 138,000 Jews living in the Slovakian portion of Czechoslovakia. The Slovaks secceed from Czechososlavakia and set up slavishly compliant pro-NAZI state (March 1939). The NAZI's carved up Slovakia and the resulting NAZI-puppet state had a Jewish population of about 89,000. The Slovaks seeking to appeal to their NAZI masters began enacting anti-Semitic laws nased on the NAZI Nuremberg Laws. Officials targeted Jews as the enemy of the Slovak people. The Slovakian Government enacted the Jewish Code (1941). Slovakian officials began deporting its Jews to NAZI occupied Poland as the death camps were beginning to operate (March 25, 1942). Officials deported 57,628 Jews to Poland, about two-thirds of the Slovakian Jews, in the next 7 months. Only about 600-800 Jews survived these transports. Most of the Slovakian Jews were killed in the death camps of the Lublin district. Some were killed at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Slovakian officials stopped deportations (October 20). At that time the killing of the deportees became widely known in Slovakia. The remaining Jews that were unable to hide were interned in labor camps in Slovakia (Sered, Novaky, and Vyhne). After the tide of battle shifted on the Eastern Front, NAZI allies began reconsidering their position. A Slovak National Uprising occurred (1944). The NAZIs as a result occupied Slovakia (autumn 1944). The first deportations were carried out by the Slovaks. Now the NAZIs began deporting the remaining Slovakian Jews. The NAZIs deported 13,000 Jews to the Polish death camps (primarily (Auschwitz-Birkenau) and to Theresienstadt in Czechoslovakia and German camps. Slovakia special police commandos murdered 1,000 at this time. While the Slovakian Government loyally supported the NAZIs in killing Jews, there were many Slovaks who risked their lives to hide their Jewish countrymen. Slovaks hid about About 10,000 Jews. The Czechs people suffered during the German occupation. Losses during World War II, however, were not as great as in many other countries, especially Poland to the north. The major exception were the Czech Jews.

Hungarian occupied Slovakia

Hungary occupied southern Slovakia under the terms of the First Vienna Awards (November 1938). They occupied additional areas of Slovakia when the Germans invaded Czesoslovakia (March 1939).

Carpatho-Ruthenia

There is little evidence if virulent anti-Smitism in Carpatho-Ruthenia duiring the 19tyh and early-20th century. The Jewish population totaled aboy 80,000 Jews people at the time gthe privince was seized by the Hungarians, about 15 percent of the population, but they were not evenly spread over the pivince. Most Jews lived in the towns and villages. Mukachevo has an especially large population with Jews making upnearly half the population. The Jews in Ruthenia were subject to Hungarian anti-Semetic regulations, but not German extermination operations. When the Germans invaded Hunagary this changed (March 1944). The Germans set up 17 main ghettos to concentrate the Jews in the cities (May 1944). They were short term ghettoes, the Jews in them were quickly deported to Auschwitz where they were murdered shortly before the killing operation at Auschwitz was closed. Only a few Jews survived. Some were hidden by sympathetic neighbours. Others survived in the labor battalions where they got some food and shelter.

Reinhard Heydrich (September 1941-42)

Reports from Prague convinced Hitler that NAZI aooficials were taking it to easy on both the Czechs and Jews. He appointed Reinhard Heydrich Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Security Police, as Reich Protectorate and dispatched him to Prague (September 27, 1941). Heydrich was already operating as Himmler's main subordinate on Jewish matters and had set the mass murder of Polish Jews in motion by preparing killing methods and building death camps. This appointment was a reward. Essentiinaly making the king of Bohemia. It gave him an independent authority in the Protectorate answerable only to Hitler. He reported directly to Martin Bormann for Hitler's information and had at least one private meeting with Hitler (October 25). [Heydrich Fernschreiben] On this occassion he gave a presentation to Hitler which he had earlier discussed with Himmler. By the time he arrived in Parague, almost all Czech Jews were in custody or deported. Heydrich was now thinking abot what to do with the Czechs. The SS Genralplan Ost called for dispossing of 50 percent of the Czech population.

Thereisenstadt (1941-45)

The NAZIs set up the Thereisenstadt ghetto/concentration camp for Czech and foreign Jews to concentrate them before the death camps were operational (1941). They used it as a model camp for propganda purposes. As reports began to leak out about the killing of Jews, thevNAZIs used Thereisenstadt to show to the Red Cross and Western journalists on fact-finding missions. Here the NAZIs used the camp to prove that deported Jews were being treated well. These inspection/fact finding visits, however, were infrequent and superficial. The Jews at Thereisenstadt, of course, were not well treated. The camp, however, was not a death camp. Conditions were superior to Auschwitz. The Jews were stripped of their property upon entering. Rations were limited, but they were allowed adegree of cultural life. The prisoners were allowed to organize classes for the children. They could put on plays and give concerts. They were even allowed to publish acamp newspaper. About 35,000 people died in the camp from starvation and disease. About 80,000 Jews are believed to have been transported from Thereisenstadt to Auschwitz and other death camps, although estimates vary somewhat. The Red Army liberated the camp (May 8, 1945).

Killing

The German killing of Czech Jews is not well covered in the Holocaust literature. We have just begun to pice together some basic information. The Einsatzgruppen which murdered so ruthlessly in the Soviet Union were to my knowledge not employed in murder Aktionen in Czechoslovakia. We do not, however, have much information on just what the Einsatzgrupen did in Czechoslovakia. SS Einsatzgruppen teams as in Austria and the Sudetenland also went into the occupied Czech lands. Eisatzgruppe I Prag was commanded by ??????. It included four Einsatzkommando (Budweis, Prag, Kolin, and Pardubitz). We believe they hunted down and arrested vocal NAZI critics and Chech nationalists like army officers. Wealthy Jews may have been on their lists. This is a topic we need to investigate in durther detail. Czechoslovakia was the first non-German country occupied by the NAZIs and thus the country occupied for the longest period. We do not have much information on Germn killing operations in Czechoslovakia which during World War II meant the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. We do know that there were killing operations in which the SS killed substantial numbers of Czech Jews. We do not yet know, however, just where and when and how many were killed. This seems to have occurred in 1941, but were are not yet sure about that. We know there were shootings because of sureptitious recordings in British and American POW camps. In one recording SS Oberscharführer Fritz Swoboda described shooting Jews in Czechoslovakia to a Whermacht officer. Swoboda explained that it was done on more than one military base which must have meant either Wehrmacht or Luftwaffe bases or both. Swoboda descibes shooting men and women. We suspect that this meant children were also shot, but that he was ashamed to add that detail. We do not know how the Jews to be shot were selected. The killers earned double rations and a cash bonus. Most Czedch Jews were killed in the death camps the NAZIs built in occupied Poland. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were sent from ghettos in Poland and Czechoslovakia to the extermination camps at Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek. Thereisenstadt served as holding point until the death camps were in operation. Most Czech Jews were murdered in gas chambers. [March-October 1942] Few Czech and Slovakian Jews survived. More than 70,000 Czech Jews were killed by the NAZIs.

Czechs

The Jews were not the only NAZI targets. The Czechs themselves were targeted by the NAZIs. As in occupied Poland, the NAZIs planned to deport Czechs to make room for German settlers. A Chilean Diplomat stationed in Prague, Gonzalo Montt Rivas, developed close relations with NAZI officials. He attended a lecture delivered by Karl Hermann Frank, the number two NAZI official in the Protectorate (June 1941). Frank explained to his audience, "The Reich has once again manifested its firm intention… of Germanizing all territories within its 'living space.' And experience has shown that the only practical means of achieving this object is to eliminate the native inhabitants, replacing them with its own co-nationals." The SS under Generalplan Ost planned to deport about 50 percent of the Czech population east. Most other occupied people in the East were to betreated more hashly. It is unclear to what extent deportment to the East would have involved straighout murder, but given the way the NAZIs conducted deportations, many of the deportees would have perished even if not shot. Hitler was apparently displeased with the slow pace of this process and the mild treatment of the Czechs. This was in part because Frank complained about the Reich Protector. This is one of the main reasons Heydrich was sent to Prague. His assasinatin by Czech agents air dropped into the Protectorate derailed plans for deporting Czechs as did the deteriorating war situation.

Individuals

We are collecting information on Czech children caught up in the NAZI Holocaust, but so far have acquired only a few actual accounts.

Madeleine Albright (1937- )

Madeleine was born Marie Jana Korbelová in the Smíchov district of Prague (1937). Czechoslovakia had at the time been independent for about 20 years, but had become a target for Hitler's first non-German aggression. Her father was Josef Korbel, a Jewish diplomat and strong supporter Czech democrats, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and Edvard Beneš. Her mother was Anna (née Spieglová), also Jewish. Madeleine was their first child. They later had two more children, a daughter Katherine and son John. At the time Madeline was born, her father was serving as the press-attaché at the Czechoslovak Embassy in Belgrade. The family remained in Prague. The signing of the Munich Accords (Septmber 1938) made it clear to her fathr that Czechoslovakia and their family as Jews and supporters of Masaryk and Beneš were in mortal danger. The family converted to Catholocism. This made no difference to the NAZIs, but did make it easier to move through Europe. Her father was right. The Germans invaded (March 1939). In a book based on family reminisces (until she was old enough to remembr), Albright writes, "In suceeding days, the snow stopped but the air remained bitter cold. German soldiers occupied the local army barracks; Nazi administrators made themselves at home in the finest residences and hotels. Each morning before dawn, men in long coats moved swuftly around the city; they carried night sticks and lists of names. My parents sent me to stay with my grandmother and did their best to do what their beloved country had done--disappear." [Albright] Einstazgruppen (Einsatzgruppe I Prag) as in Austria arrived in Prague with carefully prepared lists of people to arrest. Somehow their father managed to get them out of what the Germans called the Protectorate of Bohenia and Moravia which became a giant death trap for Jews. The fact that Jews were not the NAZI's primary target at first probably saved them. The family spent the War years in Briain. Her father worked for the Czech Government-in-exile. They were in London at the peak of the Blitz. They subsequently moved to Beaconsfield on the outskirts of London. While in London, Madeleine appeared as a refugee child in a film depicting war refugees in London. The family returned to liberated Czechoslovakia after the War, but after the Communists seizee power, migrated to America. Mrs. Albright became the first woman Secretary of State. It was only then that she learned tht she was born Jewish.

Peter Ginz

Peter Ginz was was a 16-year old Czech boy murdered by the NAZIs. Peter was of mixed Jewish-Christian parentage. In Germany this might have saved him. Individuals with a Christian parent (two non-Jewish grandparents were classified as Mischlings and not Jews. The NAZIs were not as careful in the occupied countries. Peter was transported to Theresienstadt (1942) where he spent 2 years. He founded and edited a magazine there. After Theresienstadt had served its propaganda purpose and with Allied armies closing in on the Reich, the NAZIs began liquidating the camp. Peter was transported to Auschwitz (1944) where he was killed. We would know little about him, just one of the 6 million Jews that the NAZIs killed. But Peter kept a diary which survived. They show a promising artistic and literary talent. The diary only recently cme to light, ironically a a result of the doomed Columbia space shuttle disaster. Israeli austronaut Ilan Ramon took a copy of Peter's drawing "Moon Landscape" with him. A man in Prague who found Peter's diary in a house he purchased contacted Yad Vashem. The diary also included excerpts from novels he was writing. One excerpt reads, "It occurred to me then that my feelings at that moment were like a newspaper before it hits the rolling press. All the preasure from every side disappeared. I wondered why does the pure paper of children's souls have to pass from a young age through the rolling press of life and society, which imprints it with all sorts of qualities and crushes it under the pressure of worries about livelihood and the attack of enemies." [Ginz]

Sources

Albright, Madeleine. Prague Wunter (2012), 496p.

Breitman, Richard. "What Chilean Diplomats Learned about the Holocaust" (National Archive/Interagency Wrking Group, 2001). Breitman is a Professor of History at American University and the IWG Director of Historical Research. His article is in part based on Chilean diplomatic reports.

Frank, Karl Hermann. [British] Summary, September 13. 1941, of Chilean desptach from Gonzalo Montt Rivas (June 24, 1941). Copy in National Archive RG 226, Entry 16, document #7346

Ginz, Peter. ed. Chava Pressburger. The Diary of Peter Ginz (Atlantic Monthly, 2007). 161p.

Michaelis, Herbert and Enst Schraepler. eds. Ursachen und Folgen, Vol. 18. (Berlin Dokumenten-Verlag Dr. Herbert Wendler & Co, undated).

Heydrich Fernschreiben for Lammers, for Bormann, 9 Oct. 1941, NA RG 242, Microfilm T-120, R 1026/ F 406029-034.

Hitler's appointment schedule, NA RG 242, T-84. R 387/ F 516.






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Created: August 18, 2003
Last updated: 1:20 PM 12/1/2013