History of the Jews in Czechoslovakia

Historical demographics

table 1. Jewish population by religion in Czechoslovakia

	1921, absolute no.	1921,% of total population	1930, absolute no.	1930,% of total population
Bohemia	79,777	1.19	76,301	1.07
Moravia	37,989	1.09	41,250	1.16
Silesia	7,317	1.09
Slovakia	135,918	4.53	136,737	4.11
Carpathian Rus	93,341	15.39	102,542	14.14
Total	354,342	2.6	356,830	2.42

Table 2. Declared Nationality of Jews in Czechoslovakia

Ethnonationality	1921,%	1930,%
Jewish	53.62	57.20
Czechoslovak	21.84	24.52
German	14.26	12.28
Hungarian	8.45	4.71
Others	1.83	1.29

The Holocaust

For the Czechs of the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia, German occupation was a period of brutal oppression. The Jewish population of Bohemia and Moravia was virtually annihilated. Many Jews emigrated after 1939; approximately 78,000 were killed. By 1945, some 14,000 Jews remained alive in the Czech lands.
Approximately 144,000 Jews were sent to Theresienstadt concentration camp. Most inmates were Czech Jews. About a quarter of the inmates died in Theresienstadt, mostly because of the deadly conditions. About 88,000 were deported to Auschwitz and other extermination camps. When the war finished, there were a mere 17,247 survivors. There were 15,000 children living in the children's home inside the camp; only 93 of those children survived.

Communist period

The aftermath of the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état saw the control and repression of the Jewish religious community by the communist government, which essentially completed the destruction of the Jewish religious landscape. The communist party was ambivalent in mentioning that the majority of Czechoslovaks who were victims of the fascists were in fact of Jewish origin and the government undertook a de-Judaization of school textbooks. Orthodox Jews refer to that 40 year period as a "Communist holocaust".

Czech National Archives

In 2011 the Czech National Archives digitized all volumes of the Registers of Births, Marriages, and Deaths of Jewish communities, except those needing substantial preservation and restoration. In accordance with the Register of Births, Marriages, and Deaths Act only entries older than 100 years from the last entry in the Births Registers and 75 years from the last entry in the Marriages and Deaths Registers will be made accessible. The restriction does not apply to the Jewish control registers owing to the time range of entries. As of 2015 the digitization of the entire collection is complete and, within the given restrictions, accessible online.