About Jewishness

Jews in the Czech Republic are predominantly Ashkenazic Jews, and the current Jewish population is only a fraction of the First republic's Jewish population. As of 2005, there were approximately 4,000 Jews living in the Czech Republic. There are ten small Jewish communities all around the country (seven in Bohemia and three in Moravia). The umbrella organisation for the Jewish communities in the country is the Federation of Jewish Communities (FZO). Services have been hold in Prague and some other cities.
As part of the original Czechoslovakia, and before that the Austro-Hungarian Empire the Jews had a long association with this part of Europe. Throughout the last thousand years there have emerged over 600 Jewish communities in what is now the Czech Republic. According to the 1930 census, Czechoslovakia had a Jewish population of 356,830.

Jewish Prague
Jews are believed to have settled in Prague as early as the 10th century. The 16th century was a golden age for Jewry in Prague. One of the famous Jewish scholars of the time was known as the Maharal, who served as a leading rabbi in Prague for most of his life. He is buried at the Old Jewish Cemetery in Josefov, and his grave with its tombstone intact, can still be visited. It is said that the body of Golem (created by Maharal) lies in the attic of the where the genizah of Prague's community is kept. In 1708, Jews accounted for one-quarter of Prague’s population.

Transport of Czech Jews to Latvia

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 (117,551 according to the 1930 census) 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 (33,000) died in Theresienstadt, mostly because of the deadly conditions (hunger, stress, and disease, especially the typhus epidemic at the very end of war). 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.

History of the Jews in Slovakia
Before World War II, 135,000 Jews lived in Slovakia. Some emigrated before the war, but most were killed in deportation. After the Slovakia Republic proclaimed its independence in March 1939 under the protection of Nazi Germany, Slovakia began a series of measures aimed against the Jews in the country, first excluding them from the military and government positions. The Hlinka's Guard began to attack Jews, and the "Jewish Code" was passed in September 1941. Resembling the Nuremberg Laws, the Code required that Jews wear a yellow armband, and were banned from intermarriage and many jobs.
The pro-Nazi regime of President Jozef Tiso, a Catholic priest, agreed to deport its Jews as part of the Nazi Final Solution.
By October 1941, 15,000 Jews were expelled from Bratislava; many were sent to labour camps. Originally, the Slovak government tried to make a deal with Germany in October 1941 to deport its Jews as a substitute for providing Slovak workers to help the war effort. After the Wannsee Conference, the Germans agreed to the Slovak proposal, and a deal was reached where the Slovak Republic would pay for each Jew deported, and, in return, Germany promised that the Jews would never return to the republic. The initial terms were for "20,000 young, strong Jews", but the Slovak government quickly agreed to a German proposal to deport the entire population for "evacuation to territories in the east".
The deportations of Jews from Slovakia started on 25 March 1942, but halted on 20 October 1942 after a group of Jewish citizens, led by Gisi Fleischmann and Rabbi Michael Ber Weissmandl, built a coalition of concerned officials from the Vatican and the government, and, through a mix of bribery and negotiation, was able to stop the process. By then, however, some 58,000 Jews had already been deported, mostly to Auschwitz, as forced labourers for German armament factories, at least this was what Tiso and the Slovak government presumed it to be. Slovak government officials filed complaints against Germany, when it became clear that many of the previously deported Slovakian Jews had been shot in mass executions.
Jewish deportations resumed on 30 September 1944, when the Soviet army reached the Slovak border, and the Slovak National Uprising took place. As a result of these events, Germany decided to occupy all of Slovakia and the country lost its independence. During the German occupation, another 13,500 Jews were deported and 5,000 were imprisoned. Deportations continued until 31 March 1945. In all, German and Slovak authorities deported about 70,000 Jews from Slovakia; about 65,000 of them were murdered or died in concentration camps. The overall figures are inexact, partly because many Jews did not identify themselves, but one 2006 estimate is that approximately 105,000 Slovak Jews, or 77% of their prewar population, died during the war.
After the war, the number of Jews in Slovakia was estimated to 25,000. Most of them decided to emigrate.
Today only 6,000 Jews live in Slovakia, predominantly in Bratislava.