German protectorate proclaimed by Adolf Hitler on March 16, 1939, following the occupation of those territories by the Wehrmacht on the previous day. The First Czechoslovak Republic had been established after World War I, on October 28, 1918, after the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. The Second Czechoslovak Republic, the rump state created in the wake of the Munich Conference (September 28-29, 1938), and the German annexation of the Sudetenland, came to an abrupt end. After the German invasion, Bohemia and Moravia, the heartland of the historic Czech lands, became part of the territory of the Reich. Konstantin von Neurath was appointed the Reich protector. Karl Hermann Frank - leader of the Sudeten German party - became state secretary, and all other key positions were filled by Reich officials, who through the Landraete (local German councils) acquired control over the Czech provincial authorities. Nominally, there remained the Czech president, Emil Hacha, and an "autonomous" Czech government, whose acts were to be completely subordinate to the political, economic, and military interests of the Third Reich. Henceforth, the fate of the Jews differed in each of the former provinces of Czechoslovakia.
The Jewish Community and Initial Anti-Jewish Measures
On the eve of the German occupation, a total of 136 Jewish religious congregations existed in Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia. The Jewish population numbered 118,310 persons, according to the criteria of the Nuremberg Laws. Immediately after the occupation, a wave of arrests coded Aktion Gitter (Operation Bars), was launched, mostly of emigrants from Germany, Czech public figures, and Jews. Jew baiting became vociferous, the lead being taken by the most extreme of the fascist organisations, Vlajka (The Flag), which was especially active in Moravia. Anti-Jewish excesses began during the first days of the occupation: The synagogues of Vsetin and Jihlava (Iglau) were burned down. In other localities (Plzen and Brno), Jews were rounded up in cafes and attacked on the streets under various pretexts. Forced Emigration. In June 1939, Adolf Eichmann arrived in Prague and set up the Zentralstelle fuer Juedische Auswanderung (Central Office for Jewish Emigration) to encourage large-scale emigration. It is estimated that before October 1941, when emigration was banned, 26,629 Jews managed to leave the country legally or illegally. Among these were 2,500 persons who - under the haavara Agreement signed on January 13, 1939, between the Czechoslovak Ministry of Finance and the Jewish Agency - reached Palestine in three groups (March 1939, October 1939, and January 1940). Others emigrated to Great Britain, the United States, or South America, or escaped to neighbouring Poland. Hundreds of children and young people were transferred by the Hehalutz and Youth Aliyah movements to Great Britain, Denmark, and the Netherlands for agricultural training.
