Wow, Hitler going to an art school could have stopped the war? Now that is a new one. Ugh.
What countries exactly are considered Eastern Europe?
This is an interesting bit of history, because I never really considered pre-war Czechoslovakia antisemitic - probably based on our first president Masaryk, who was well known for his support of jewish people (in the late 19th century, he became famous for defending a Jew named Hilsner in a murder trial of a young girl - he was most likely innocent, but at the time that didn't earn Masaryk many friends). So I did some research and it turns out that the Slovakian part of Czechoslovakia was somewhat antisemitic, while in the Czech part the antisemitism was supposedly much weaker than before the war and weaker than in most of Europe, though there has never been a serious study of this. I guess some of it was Masaryk's influence - even though we tend to idolize the guy a bit, there is no doubt that he was a remarkable person.
If people really want to talk about how the war could have been prevented, then maybe they shouldn't have signed the "Munich treaty", which effectively ripped Czechoslovakia apart and later gave Hitler the weapons he needed to attack the rest of Europe. We will never be able to tell if Czechoslovakia would have been able to sustain Hitler's attack, but we wanted to fight - the army was ready and eager to defend the boarders, until they were forbidden to do so by the travesty of a "treaty". On one hand, thanks to being annexed by Germany, Czechoslovakia was mostly spared of the fights and most non-Jewish people survived... but maybe if we had fought, the war never would have broken out and Hitler could have been stopped right there, or it would have taken him longer to get the kind of power that he then unleashed on Europe. But that's all pure speculation nowadays. If there is one wisdom to take from it, it's that trying to appease a power-hungry dictator by backstabbing your alies is usually a bad move - sooner or later he will want more and then you'll have no ally and an enemy on your doorstep.
Still, you made me wonder how much antisemitism there was in Czechoslovakia in between the wars...
From what I know, there were people who stole the Jewish property and helped the system, but they were mostly considered collaborants and traitors by the other Czechs... who mostly remained quiet, except for those who left the country to fight either with the Brits or the Russians. Whoever opposed the system was persecuted... the university students who demonstrated against the Nazis in 1939 were sent to concentration camps or outright murdered; two innocent villages were burned to ground as a retaliation for the assasination of Heydrich, and those are just the best known cases.
I want to say that we were innocent in the Jewish persecution, but that wouldn't be true. And it troubles me - like I said before, my great-grandfather was half-jewish, and he ended up in Theresinstadt for helping his jewish friends; though he was one of the lucky ones and survived the war. At least I can say that nowadays, antisemitism is very rare here - yes, you will still find an odd "neonazi" or two, but they're by far a minority.
So we let the Nazis take over our country, and after the war we let the communists take over and ruin this place for forty years. It was a crappy situation all around but we still let it happend, and we have to live with this knowledge and move on somehow.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2015-04-17 09:33 pm (UTC)What countries exactly are considered Eastern Europe?
This is an interesting bit of history, because I never really considered pre-war Czechoslovakia antisemitic - probably based on our first president Masaryk, who was well known for his support of jewish people (in the late 19th century, he became famous for defending a Jew named Hilsner in a murder trial of a young girl - he was most likely innocent, but at the time that didn't earn Masaryk many friends). So I did some research and it turns out that the Slovakian part of Czechoslovakia was somewhat antisemitic, while in the Czech part the antisemitism was supposedly much weaker than before the war and weaker than in most of Europe, though there has never been a serious study of this. I guess some of it was Masaryk's influence - even though we tend to idolize the guy a bit, there is no doubt that he was a remarkable person.
If people really want to talk about how the war could have been prevented, then maybe they shouldn't have signed the "Munich treaty", which effectively ripped Czechoslovakia apart and later gave Hitler the weapons he needed to attack the rest of Europe. We will never be able to tell if Czechoslovakia would have been able to sustain Hitler's attack, but we wanted to fight - the army was ready and eager to defend the boarders, until they were forbidden to do so by the travesty of a "treaty". On one hand, thanks to being annexed by Germany, Czechoslovakia was mostly spared of the fights and most non-Jewish people survived... but maybe if we had fought, the war never would have broken out and Hitler could have been stopped right there, or it would have taken him longer to get the kind of power that he then unleashed on Europe. But that's all pure speculation nowadays. If there is one wisdom to take from it, it's that trying to appease a power-hungry dictator by backstabbing your alies is usually a bad move - sooner or later he will want more and then you'll have no ally and an enemy on your doorstep.
Still, you made me wonder how much antisemitism there was in Czechoslovakia in between the wars...
From what I know, there were people who stole the Jewish property and helped the system, but they were mostly considered collaborants and traitors by the other Czechs... who mostly remained quiet, except for those who left the country to fight either with the Brits or the Russians. Whoever opposed the system was persecuted... the university students who demonstrated against the Nazis in 1939 were sent to concentration camps or outright murdered; two innocent villages were burned to ground as a retaliation for the assasination of Heydrich, and those are just the best known cases.
I want to say that we were innocent in the Jewish persecution, but that wouldn't be true. And it troubles me - like I said before, my great-grandfather was half-jewish, and he ended up in Theresinstadt for helping his jewish friends; though he was one of the lucky ones and survived the war. At least I can say that nowadays, antisemitism is very rare here - yes, you will still find an odd "neonazi" or two, but they're by far a minority.
So we let the Nazis take over our country, and after the war we let the communists take over and ruin this place for forty years. It was a crappy situation all around but we still let it happend, and we have to live with this knowledge and move on somehow.