„Can we, the Czech Catholics, be Antisemites?“ Antisemitism at the Dawn of the Czech Christian-Social Movement

Author(s): Michal Frankl / Language(s): English Issue: 1/1997

The aim of the present article is to provide first insights into the history of antisemitism in the Czech Christian Social movement before 1900. Historians have so far paid very little attention to Christian Socialism; for lack of relevant literature, I will briefly describe the inception of this movement and the first years of its activity. It is however, not my intention to give a detailed analysis of the history and the highs and lows of the Czech Christian Social movement. I shall concentrate on the philosophical, social, and political roots of its antisemitism.

Der Antisemitismus in den nationalen Bewegungen im Teschner Gebiet

Author(s): Václav Štěpánek / Language(s): German Issue: 1/1997

This article examines the phenomenon of antisemitism in the national movements in the Teschen region, a borderland area between the Czech Republic and Poland, in the second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. It traces the origins and development of antisemitic ideology in Germany and Russia, and how it influenced the Polish and Czech nationalists in their struggle for the national character of the region. It also analyzes the various forms and manifestations of antisemitism in the local press, politics, and society, and how the Jews responded to the attacks and accusations. The article argues that antisemitism was a significant factor in the deterioration of the interethnic relations and the rise of nationalism in the Teschen region.

Zeitgenössische Reaktionen auf die josephinische Toleranz der Juden in Böhmen und Mähren. Prager und Wiener Diskussion über die Toleranz der Juden zwischen 1781 und 1782

Author(s): Jiří Kuděla / Language(s): German Issue: 1/1996

This study examines the contemporary reactions to the Josephine tolerance of the Jews in Bohemia and Moravia, focusing on the Prague and Vienna discussion between 1781 and 1782. The author collects and paraphrases most of the known occasional prints that appeared on this topic, and analyzes their arguments and perspectives. The study also provides some historical background on the situation of the Jews in the Habsburg monarchy, especially after the annexation of Galicia and Lodomeria, and the influence of the enlightened ideas on the Jewish emancipation.

Systematic Collection of Memories Organized by the Jewish Museum in Prague-IV

Author(s): Anna Hyndráková,Anna Lorencová / Language(s): English Issue: 1/1996

The document contains a collection of memoirs from survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust, organized by the Jewish Museum in Prague and provides brief annotations of the recorded memoirs, numbered from 301 to 400, with information such as the names, dates, places, and experiences of the individuals. The memoirs cover various aspects of the Holocaust, such as deportation, ghetto life, concentration camps, resistance, hiding, liberation, and post-war adaptation. The document is a valuable source of historical and personal testimonies of the Jewish fate during the Nazi occupation.

Notes bibliographiques

Author(s): Jan Heřman,Bedřich Nosek,Jiřina Šedinová,Anita Franková,Anna Hyndráková / Language(s): English,French,German Issue: 1/1970

Reviews of: 1. Charles Wengrov: Haggadah and Woodcut. An Introduction to the Passover Haggadah Completed by Gershom Cohen in Prague. Sunday, 26th Teveth 5287 / December 30, 1528. Schulsinger Brothers, New York 1967. Passover Haggadah, Shmuel Mohr, Bene-Beraq, 1988. 2. Shammai Waks: Grief is My Song (Ma trojer lid) Los Angeles, 1966, 104 pages. 3. Růžena Bubeníčkovi, Ludmila Kubátová, Irena Malá: Tábory utrpení a smrti. - The Camps of Suffering and Death, Svoboda, Prague, 1969, 490 pages. 4. Arnold Pauckert: Der jüdische Abwehrkampf gegen Antisemitismus und Nationalsozialismus in den letzten fahren der Weimarer Republik. Hamburg, Leibniz-Verlag, 1988, 311 S.

Doświadczenie traumy a perspektywa zwierzęca. Wokół opowiadań Lwy Iwana Ptasznikaua i Pies Idy Fink

Author(s): Beata Siwek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2024

The main purpose of the article is to show the traumatic experiences (the Chernobyl tragedy, the Holocaust) from the animal perspective. To achieve this goal, two prose texts have been compared. Although the texts differ in their narrative strategies, both place an animal protagonist in the center. In the stories Lions by the Belarusian prose writer Ivan Ptasznikau and The Dog written by an Israeli writer of Polish origin, Ida Fink, the animal goes through a painful experience that is close to a human one. These texts fall within the context of the so-called posthumanistics, emphasizing the collectivity of the human and animal lives.

The Jewish Museum in Prague - 1999 Annual Report

Author(s): Leo Pavlát / Language(s): English Issue: 1/1999

The Jewish Museum in Prague is actively collecting memories from Holocaust survivors, resistance members, and witnesses. The document lists annotated memoirs, detailing individuals' experiences such as deportation to concentration camps like Auschwitz, involvement in the resistance movement, and post-war lives. Many survivors emigrated, joined armies, or participated in underground activities. The accounts include escapes, internment, and life in mixed marriages during the war. Post-liberation, some individuals moved to countries like Israel or the USA, while others returned to Czechoslovakia or engaged in educational work.

Baltic Nations in Soviet Dissident Literature: The Compromise by Sergei Dovlatov

Author(s): Deniss Hanovs / Language(s): English Issue: 51/2023

The article reflects on the images of the Baltic nations in the novel The Compromise (1981) by Soviet dissident author Sergei Dovlatov. The novel is analyzed within the framework of Baltic post-colonial studies, which are supplemented by the history of Soviet dissident literature of the early 1980s. The narrator, a Soviet journalist, acts in two roles: he is a Soviet subaltern and a dissident author, yet a staff member of a Soviet newspaper, and therefore a colonial tool. The narrator discovers his in-between status when he discovers his colonized status while at the same time his revelation does not produce any change in his image of the Baltic cultures. They, the Baltic nations, remain unknown to the narrator. His fragmented discovery of Estonian and Latvian history and culture leads to no real contact with the groups. Selected chapters of the novel analyzed in this paper suggest that the orientalized Estonians and Latvians remain as silenced groups with stories unknown to the narrator, as the language tools necessary for a dialogue are missing. The narrator also participates in the process of orientalizing the Baltic cultures, as the case of a milkmaid shows.

Cultural Life in the 1960s in the USSR as Reflected in Tout compte fait (1972), the Autobiography of Simone de Beauvoir

Author(s): Solveiga Daugirdaite / Language(s): English Issue: 52/2023

The article aims to discuss cultural life in the USSR in the context of the changing cultural policy in the 1960s as reflected in Simone de Beauvoir’s memoirs. During the period from 1962 to 1966, de Beauvoir was visiting the Soviet Union regularly together with Jean-Paul Sartre, spending several weeks in different parts of the country. Unlike Sartre, she left a written account of the political, economic, and cultural situation in the USSR. De Beauvoir captured the transition from the so-called Thaw to the Stagnation that occurred during that decade. During their first visits, the atmosphere was still rather liberal and a desire to communicate with the West was still present, but soon the persecution of dissidents and the antisemitic trials began. This article emphasizes the importance of autobiographical books in de Beauvoir’s oeuvre, highlighting, on the one hand, the narrator’s accuracy and attention to detail and, on the other hand, her efforts to shape the narrative at will, bypassing uncomfortable aspects (such as tensions in her relationship with Sartre and the real role of some people in their life). De Beauvoir’s most important sources of information were the liberal writers of the time such as Ilya Ehrenburg and Yefim Doroch, as well as translator Lena Zonina and others. De Beauvoir’s sympathy for the Soviet system, like Sartre’s, is still a source of controversy, while her description of the changes in cultural life of the Soviet Union in the 1960s can be a valuable resource for researchers of the Soviet era.

Jüdischer monarchischer Patriotismus im Alten Reich des 18. Jahrhunderts

Author(s): Ivan Parvev / Language(s): German Issue: 1-2/2024

One of the aspects of the history of the Jews in the Holy Roman Empire of the 18th century that has only been rudimentarily researched is the so-called Jewish monarchical patriotism, which I want to be understood as a new-coined scholarly term. In my view the Jewish monarchical patriotism consists of three components. The historically oldest, which can be traced back at least to the 17th century, was the public declaration of loyalty to the monarch. The second component, the joy over victories in war or peace, can be traced back to the 1740s, when rabbis in Berlin, Prague and Vienna began to congratulate rulers on winning battles in their sermons. The third element, the military component, emerged in the late 1780s, when Emperor Joseph II ordered the recruitment of Jewish men in his army. However, not all segments of the Jewish community stood behind such a patriotic stand. On the other hand, many non-Jews perceived the demonstrated monarchical patriotism as “quasi-patriotism” that could only feed anti-Semitic prejudices.

Reconstruction of Fateful Events

Author(s): Nikolay Poppetrov / Language(s): English Issue: 1-2/2024

Odbojáři, nebo gangsteři? Příběh ilegální skupiny Pátá kolona

Author(s): Jiří Plachý / Language(s): Czech Issue: 01/2024

The article discusses the controversial history of the Czech resistance group "Pátá kolona" during World War II. Initially formed by Václav Engelmüller and other students in 1939, the group aimed to fight against the Nazi occupation. However, their activities often resembled those of gangsters rather than freedom fighters. They engaged in various criminal acts, including theft and murder, to fund their resistance efforts. The group's moral decline is highlighted by the murder of Jaroslav Sinkule, a member suspected of being a Gestapo informant. Despite their initial resistance efforts, the group's actions eventually drew the attention of the Gestapo, leading to arrests and the group's dissolution. The article also touches on the post-war lives of the surviving members, who faced various fates, including collaboration with the Gestapo to save their lives.

Proti Židům pravdou a činy! Příběh antisemitského týdeníku Arijský boj

Author(s): Tadeáš Hlavinka / Language(s): Czech Issue: 01/2024

The article discusses the history and impact of the antisemitic weekly magazine Arijský boj during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. Launched in May 1940 by Jan Vladimír Břetenář, the magazine was filled with aggressive antisemitic articles and caricatures, promoting Nazi racial policies. It targeted Jews and their supposed allies, calling for their exclusion from public life. The magazine also attacked "white Jews," non-Jews who opposed antisemitism or were indifferent to Nazi ideology. Contributors included notable figures like Bohumír Lain and the Innemann couple, who wrote antisemitic articles and serialized novels. The magazine's content was monitored by the Gestapo and influenced the lives of many individuals. Despite its limited circulation, Arijský boj played a significant role in spreading Nazi propaganda in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

Antisemitism as a Universal Variation of Xenophobia

Author(s): Valery V. Engel / Language(s): English Issue: 14/2024

The author examines in the article various aspects of antisemitism as a species of Xenophobia in the modern world. He tries to answer the question of what is the uniqueness of this phenomenon? Indeed, as a rule, it is mentioned even in international documents along with general manifestations of Xenophobia and Racism. The author shows that antisemitism is unique in the sense that it differs from other varieties of Xenophobia in its universal character. Indeed, antisemitism is characteristic of all types and forms of Xenophobia, it is an instrument of Islamism, as well as left and right Radicalism. The fight against antisemitism largely depends on the degree of integration of a number of non-Jewish population groups, such as migrants and Muslims, and its level largely depends on external factors to which the Jews of the diaspora are not directly related, such as the political and military situation. In the Middle East (the socalled “new antisemitism”). At the end of the article, the author answers the question why the fight against modern antisemitism is important for the general confrontation of Hatred, and also gives recommendations for the successful confrontation of this kind of Xenophobia in modern conditions.

Panovnický antijudaismus na Moravě v první čtvrtině 18. století. Hledání klíče k regulaci židovské menšiny

Author(s): Martin Štindl / Language(s): Czech Issue: 2/2023

The paper focuses on the territory of Moravia between 1708–1728, when the Habsburg state produced a series of legislative measures that had a lasting impact on the status of the Jewish population. The author sees this process as the formation of a monarchical anti-Judaism that gradually abandoned the older models of the Estates State and adopted the principles of absolute monarchies. In addition to formal shifts, the paper focuses primarily on the themes of these measures, the targets of which – the Jewish home, the synagogue, the ghetto, the family – tended to change frequently as the state sought the most an effective method for regulating the Jewish minority. Last but not least, the paper focuses on the actors who initiated the individual measures or were involved in their practical application.

Ukrajinské dvacáté století jako jedna strana mince

Author(s): Stanislav Tumis / Language(s): Czech Issue: 2/2024

The reviewer offers commentary on the book by Ukrainian historian, civic activist, politician and, in recent months, soldier Volodymyr Mykhailovych Viatrovych entitled "Ukrajinské 20. století: Utajované dějiny" [Ukrainian Twentieth Century: The Secret History], which is a Czech translation of the original edition "Ukraina: Istoriia z hryfom «Sekretno» (Kyiv, Klub simeinoho dozvillia 2011). He regards it as a valuable, though highly unconventional contribution to the field of modern Ukrainian history. The book is essentially a popularization of historical material, compiled by the author on the basis of dozens of his journalistic columns. It presents a subjective selection of historical stories, retold according to sources from the archives of the Ukrainian Security Service (Sluzhba Bezpeky Ukrainy, SBU), which the author interprets freely. The reviewer identifies a fundamental issue in Viatrovych’s approach, which effectively equates the history of Ukraine in the last century with the history of the Ukrainian nationalist movement, from its origins after the First World War to the activities of institutions such as the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Orhanizatsiia Ukrainskykh Natsionalistiv, OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukrainska povstanska armiia, UPA), to Ukrainian dissent and the emergence of an independent Ukrainian state. Consequently, he excludes Soviet history from the narrative of Ukrainian history, portraying it as an alien and imposed element. He does not address the questions of how Ukrainians felt about the Soviet Union and the communist regime. Instead, he presents the argument that Ukrainians have consistently defined themselves in opposition to this reality. In such a one-sided and incomplete narrative, he tends to deny violent manifestations of Ukrainian nationalism – including anti-Semitism – as a “Soviet myth” or attempts to refute them with individual heroic stories. The objective of Viatrovych’s otherwise thought-provoking and well-written book is to identify the foundations of the old-new Ukrainian collective identity in the context of the current exacerbated situation of Russian aggression.

„Завесата все още е желязна“. Трагичната история на полет 4Х-АКС в международен и български контекст

Author(s): Vanya Mihaylova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2017

The study is devoted to the Israeli plane that was fired by two Bulgarian jet fighters over the Bulgarian airspace on the 27th of July 1955. The main purpose of the author is to present the facts and circumstances associated with the tragic 4X-AKC flight and to examine the causes of the tragic event, the international response and the way it was used for propaganda purposes against both Bulgaria and the Eastern bloc and the USSR. The myths and assumptions concerning the plane crash that are a result of the obscure aspects about the reasons why the Israeli plane entered into the Bulgarian territory and the circumstances demanded for it to be brought down are analyzed. A special attention is paid to the impact of the incident on the relations between Bulgaria and Israel as the main parties in that special case and their diplomatic negotiations in order for the issue about the payment of certain compensation to the families of the victims to be resolved. The involvements of international institutions like the United Nations and the International Court of Justice in an attempt for the problem of the guilt and the compensation due thereunder to be solved are scrutinized. Describing the international situation regarding the opposition and the military rivalry and competition between the representatives of the Eastern and Western blocs just at the time when the accident with the 4X-AKC flight used to happen Vanya Mihaylova reached to the conclusion that the main reason is the specific atmosphere of distrust and mutual suspicion. The death of 58 civilian passengers proved that the negotiations during the Geneva conference in 1955 were an example of a “cold detente” in the context of the hot confrontation and “the curtain was still made o f iron”.

Uwagi na temat Wojny Sześciodniowej i postawy emigracji niepodległościowej wobec konfliktu arabsko-izraelskiego i antysemickich działań władz PRL 1967-1968

Author(s): Jacek Danel / Language(s): Polish Issue: 6/2016

Artykuł przypomina genezę i przebieg konfliktu izraelsko-arabskiego w latach 60., w tym Wojnę Sześciodniową oraz stosunek emigracji polskiej w Londynie do wydarzeń. Autor artykułu porównuje antysemicką politykę władz komunistycznych w Polsce z postawami proniepodległościowej Emigracji Polskiej w Londynie. Polskie środowiska emigracyjne zdecydowanie stoją po stronie izraelskiej.

Волпа. Старая и новая

Author(s): Leonid Smilovitskii / Language(s): Ukrainian Issue: 9-10/2020

Artykuł poświęcony jest historii społeczności żydowskiej w Wołpie. Do 1939 miasto było centrum gminy powiatu grodzieńskiego województwa białostockiego, a obecnie wchodzi skład rejonu wołkowyskiego obwodu grodzieńskiego Republiki Białorusi. Artykuł opisuje życie gospodarcze, religijne, kulturalne i narodowe Żydów, którzy w naturalny sposób uzupełniali życie Białorusinów i Polaków w Wołpie, dając przykład wzajemnego zrozumienia i współpracy. Szczególną uwagę zwrócono na losy unikatowej drewnianej synagogi z XVII wieku oraz działalność grup i klubów syjonistycznych. Osobne miejsce zajmuje historia tragicznej śmierci społeczności w czasie Holokaustu oraz próby zachowania pamięci o ich małej ojczyźnie przez współczesne pokolenie mieszkańców Wołpy. Artykuł powstał po wizycie autora w Wołpie w 2018 roku i opiera się na rzadkich danych archiwalnych, publikacjach naukowych w języku hebrajskim, angielskim, polskim i rosyjskim, czasopismach oraz wywiadach z mieszkańcami.

W poszukiwaniu „rasy panów”. Archeologia jako narzędzie budowania mitologii nazistowskiej

Author(s): Jacek Konik / Language(s): Polish Issue: 11/2021

Adolf Hitler i jego partia NSDAP uwiedli naród niemiecki nie tylko swoją ideologią polityczną, lecz także odwołaniem się do popularnego wówczas mitu o doskonałej rasie aryjskiej. Za każdym pozytywnym, twórczym działaniem w historii ludzkości, za każdym wielkim dziełem sztuki i przełomem naukowym mieli stać, jak głosili zwolennicy Hitlera, Aryjczycy, najlepsza i najbardziej twórcza z ras ludzkich. Nordyckie ludy północnej Europy, a zwłaszcza Niemcy, miały być potomkami starożytnych Aryjczyków i jako takie powinny zająć ich miejsce przodków. Artykuł dotyczy mitu Aryjczyków, jego włączenia do teorii ras ludzkich oraz wykorzystania go przez nazistów do podporządkowania Niemców i ich rasizmowi. Omawia wykorzystanie archeologii i odkryć archeologicznych w szczególności do uwiarygodnienia mitologii nazistowskiej i zbudowanej wokół niej narracji, a także najbardziej spektakularne przykłady karier archeologicznych w III Rzeszy. Kiedy archeolodzy zaangażowali się po stronie nazizmu, stali się współwinnymi konstruowania zbrodniczej i ludobójczej ideologii i systemu władzy.