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7Jews in the Czech Home Resistance From the onset of the Hitler era and especially as of the late thirties Jewish intellectuals were deeply involved in the anti-Nazi campaign, together with their Czech counterparts. They participated in public demonstrations, international rallies, and discussions and wrote widely in the press, unraveling the Nazi menace. As early as 1935 the Prague writer and journalist Dr. Oscar Singer published his anti-Nazi play Herren der Welt, forewarning of the approaching catastrophe.∞ Nevertheless, the Jews of the Protectorate never mounted any full-scale resistance operation of their own. The absence of any separate organized underground movement or armed resistance can be ascribed to the historical development of this enclave, its political and geographic circumstances, the prevailing mentality, and other factors. Still a solid number of intellectuals, leftist socialists , and young students, overcoming the various di≈culties, found their ways to various groups of the Home Resistance.≤ The Nazi policy of coercion and intimidation ab ovo made it clear that any obstruction would be regarded as sabotage, punishable by death. This is re- flected in a communication issued by the leadership of the Jewish Religious Congregation, reminding the public in categorical terms about obedience to the law and thus dismissing ‘‘any thought of active opposition or hostile acts against the ruling authorities.’’≥ Already during the first mass arrests in the fall of 1939 many Jewish intellectuals and notables were taken hostage.∂ As political detainees they were treated during their interrogation with such cruelty that several of them preferred to put an end to their lives. Such was the case of Dr. K. Bachrach, the noted representative of the Czech liquor production and agricultural cooperative, who committed suicide while in custody.∑ Among the early victims liquidated by the Nazis were two leading figures of the Czech-Jewish movement. Dr. Otto Stross, the last head of this organization, 188 | jews in the czech home resistance perished in 1941 in Buchenwald. Dr. Zdeněk Thon, a young lawyer from Louny who served for some time on the sta√ of the jrc, was arrested on charges of maintaining contacts with the Resistance movement abroad and was tortured to death.∏ The bulk of Jewish participants in the Home Resistance naturally consisted of people already deeply engaged with Czech society, including some members of the National Organization for Physical Culture—known as Sokol—whose ideological and social involvement dated back to prewar days. Another category was their teenage sons, ardent patriots and avid resistance fighters, who fully identified with the Masaryk’s republic and democracy. Last we should mention a colorful group of Zionist youngsters of leftist orientation, mainly belonging to HaShomer HaTza’ir, including some who had come from Slovakia and Subcarpathian Ruthenia to attend vocational training courses and had been stranded in the Protectorate after the German occupation. The question of Jewish identity became a subject of discussion during the ‘‘thaw’’ in the late sixties, in the light of a major project set afoot by the academic authorities to record the history of the Second World War in all its aspects. When attention was devoted to the clandestine organizations the question of Jewish participation emerged, and a nationwide campaign was launched in an e√ort to gather testimony and all available evidence held in private collections or by the surviving relatives of the resistance fighters.π An interesting comment on the matter of Jewish identity is contained in a letter from Heda Kaufmannová, sister of Dr. Viktor Kaufmann of the pvvz (We Remain Faithful) clandestine group: ‘‘The members of pvvz, insofar as they were of Jewish origin, joined the struggle as Czechs. Their Czechness (češství) was to them as natural as breathing; [ethnic] origin or religion played no role whatsoever. Only the Nazis literally beat this [latter] fact into their heads. Thus, in the Dresden trial they separated them from the other accused, turning them over to the Gestapo.’’∫ This is, however, but one side of the coin. Our attribution of their positive Jewishness derives from the fact that specifically Jewish issues—the persecution of their families, friends, and the community as a whole—could not but have a√ected their basic outlook, weighing heavily in their reactions, decisions, and attitudes.Ω We know only too well that they were regarded as Jews not only by their Nazi persecutors but even by people around them, their closest associates in the underground cells. Most revealing on this complex issue are the comments on the Czech-Jewish relationship...

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