After the Munich Conference (September 1938), the president of Czechoslovakia, Edvard Benes, resigned and went into exile. Following the outbreak of World War II, he established a Czechoslovak National Committee in France, which, after moving to London in 1940, functioned as one of several governments-in-exile. Benes's government was recognised by the Soviet Union and Great Britain. Its main objective was to gain international recognition for the legal continuity of the Czechoslovak republic and its pre-Munich borders. One of Benes's first moves was to set up the State Council as a quasi-provisional parliament to act as a unifying body for resistance.
Rescue and Resistance
Ernst Frischer, former head of the Jewish party in Czechoslovakia, was appointed representative of the Jewish national group on the State Council. He developed a network for rescue activities and assistance, and - together with the government representatives in Geneva, Stockholm, and Lisbon - organised the sending of food, medicine and funds to concentration camps and the Theresienstadt Ghetto. Officially, the government was unwilling to undertake resistance in Czechoslovakia which might cost many lives. Yet, they did conceive of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, which ultimately cost some 5,000 lives.
Information to the Allies and Aid to Jews
The flow of information between Prague and London, and informants in the Protectorate helped the Czech government to furnish important information to the Allies. Benes and his government co-operated closely with the Jewish leadership in the free world and Palestine. They intervened with the Vatican and Allied governments on behalf of persecuted Jews, and openly condemned anti-Semitism. Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk was especially active on the Jewish issue. The government's representative in Geneva, Dr. Jaromir Kopecky, transmitted the Auschwitz Protocols to the free world.
Liberation and After
The Czechoslovak government-in-exile was the only one of its kind from Eastern Europe to be allowed to return, after the war, to its native country. In February 1948, a nearly all-Communist government was established in Czechoslovakia.
