Czech Jews face no serious antisemitic threat in their daily lives, and their relations with the authorities are good. Nevertheless there is a perceptible rise in racially-motivated crimes perpetrated mainly by far-right skinheads and often with backing from the far-right Sdruzeni pro republiku-Republikanska strana Ceskoslovenska (SPR-RSC, Association for the Republic-Republican Party of Czechoslovakia). These crimes tend to be inadequately investigated and rarely prosecuted by the authorities. Roma, against whom considerable popular resentment exists, remain the principal, though by no means sole, victims of racially-motivated offences. President Vaclav Havel continues to be a major force for the promotion of human rights in the country.
Demographic data
Total population:10.3 million
Jewish population: 3,000 (mainly in Prague)
Other minorities: the largest minority are Slovaks (300,000), followed by 200,000 Roma and 50,000 ethnic Germans
Political data
Political system: parliamentary democracy
Government: in January 1998 Josef Tosovsky (non-party) was sworn in as prime minister following the resignation of the minority coalition government led by Vaclav Kraus; the governing coalition comprises the Obcanska demokraticka strana (ODS, Civic Democratic Party), the Christian Democratic Union-Czechoslovak People's Party and the Obcanska demokraticka aliance (Civic Democratic Alliance)
Main opposition party: Ceska strana socialne demokraticka (CSSD, Social Democratic Party)
Head of state: President Vaclav Havel
Economic data
GDP per head June 1998: US$5,570
Inflation June 1998: 8.2 per cent
Unemployment June 1998: 5.2 per cent
Over 1,000 years of Jewish history in Bohemia and Moravia have
witnessed periods of both prosperity and persecution. The flourishing Jewish community
under Czechoslovak President Tomas Masaryk (1918-35), which numbered 118,000 people, was
almost completely annihilated in the Holocaust. In 1952 the show trials, orchestrated by
Moscow, of Rudolf Slansky and other top Communist officials, several of them of Jewish
extraction, displayed clear antisemitic signs. Most survivors of the Holocaust left the
country either after the Second World War or after the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia
in 1968. Since the collapse of the Soviet regime and the division of the country into two
sovereign republics, the rights of the small Czech Jewish population have been fully
respected by the authorities.
After ethnic Slovaks, the largest minority in the Czech Republic is the Rom population, officially estimated at 200,000. Roma live throughout the country but are concentrated in the industrial towns of northern Bohemia.
Roma suffer disproportionately from poverty, unemployment, inter-ethnic violence, discrimination, illiteracy and disease. They are subject to deeply ingrained popular prejudice, as is repeatedly affirmed by public opinion polls (see Opinion polls).
Efforts by foundations and individuals in the education and health fields to improve Rom living conditions, especially the condition of children, have had only minimal impact. There is a Czech-language programme for Roma on state television and another on state radio. There are various publications for Roma, of which all but one are state-supported. Rom leaders have had limited success thus far in organizing their local communities.
On 22 May 1998 police in northern Bohemia said they had seen a sharp rise in racially-motivated offences, recording 16 such offences in the first few months of 1998 alone compared with 6 in the same period in 1997. They said the increase was due mainly to 'the atmosphere created by the status of the Roma in society'.
Two examples of such violence occurred in the Prague underground on consecutive days. On 7 May 1998 a skinhead with two companions stabbed a twenty-nine-year-old Algerian. On 8 May five skinheads aged between 17 and 22 verbally attacked two Indians; they appeared in court the following day.
The government provides first asylum (the granting of temporary asylum for refugees hoping to relocate in a third country) and co-operates with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and other humanitarian organizations in assisting refugees. Asylum-seekers filed 1,198 applications for asylum in the first eight months of 1997 (latest available statistics), compared with 1,033 for the same period in 1996. The most frequently cited countries of origin in the 1997 eight-month period were Bulgaria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Romania.
The government continues to pay close attention to illegal immigration
into the country and takes steps with its neighbours to control the movement of people
across its borders.
In April 1997 Miroslav Stepan, general secretary of the Strana ceskoslovenskych komunistu (SCK, Party of Czechoslovak Communists), declared his party's intention of joining other parties in order to create an international communist organization to combat Zionism, imperialism and reaction.
Besides far-right skinheads (see below), the most prominent, currently active far-right organization in Czech politics is the Sdruzeni pro republiku-Republikanska strana Ceskoslovenska (SPR-RSC, Association for the Republic-Republican Party of Czechoslovakia). In parliamentary elections in 1996 the SPR-RSC gained 18 seats in the 200-member parliament, capturing 8.1 per cent of the vote. Throughout 1997-8 the party continued to play on popular xenophobic and anti-Rom sentiment (see Opinion polls). The SPR-RSC publishes the weekly Republika edited by Josef Krejsa (see Publications and media).
In January 1997 addressing a demonstration against the signing of a Czech-German declaration of reconciliation, SPR-RSC leader Miroslav Sladek declared: 'We can only be sorry for not having killed more Germans in the war.' Sladek was stripped of his parliamentary immunity and held in prison on charges of inciting racial hatred of Germans. On 23 January 1998 a Prague court acquitted him of these charges, ruling that he had merely expressed opinions (see also Legal matters).
On 14 February 1997 SPR-RSC parliamentarian Rudolf Smucr declared in a parliamentary debate on the Czech-German declaration of reconciliation that the government was composed of Jews, Poles and former Sudeten Germans (see also Legal matters).
On 28 March 1998 Sladek was re-elected chairman of the SPR-RSC at the party's fourth national conference. The only candidate for the post, Sladek received 202 votes from 203 delegates (he himself abstained).
There are an estimated 5,000 far-right skinheads in the Czech Republic. Skinhead activities, private gatherings or public, and frequently violent demonstrations, continue to take place.
According to a confidential report on extremist organizations in the Czech Republic in 1996 and the first half of 1997, made available to the daily newspaper Lidove noviny, in February 1998 far-right skinheads and their followers were said to be the most active amongst Czech extremists. While in 1996 police recorded 131 crimes of an extremist character, in the first half of 1997 there were already 120 such crimes. Most of the racially-motivated incidents were committed in northern and southern Moravia, and the victims were mainly Roma and foreigners.
The principal far-right skinhead organizations are the Patriotic Front, Bohemia Hammerskins, and Blood and Honour (see United Kingdom). All three have links to neo-Nazi organizations worldwide. The Prague-based human rights organization, Movement for Civic Solidarity and Tolerance, claims to have 'indications that former police officers, even members of the elite police crack force, organize armed groups motivated by racist ideology. Research among the police shows that up to one-third is sympathetic to the skins. We also know of cases of former skins becoming members of the police. They are attracted by being able to possess arms, by the possibility of using them and getting reasonable pay.'
On 24 February 1997, in an interview with the daily Lidove noviny, Jiri Fiedler, a student at the Masaryk University in Brno and leader of the skinhead organization Vlastenecka fronta (VF, Patriotic Front, see also Publications and media), stated that members of his organization were 'nationally aware young people, aiming to rouse Czech patriots to active resistance against the present government of national destruction'. He mentioned that a secret meeting had recently taken place in Prague between VF leaders and Samuel Maréchal, Jean-Marie Le Pen's son-in-law and leader of the French Front national's youth wing (see France). The Czech secret service confirms that the meeting took place.
On 5 July 1997 a private party of 200 far-right skinheads was held in Plzen. Police entered the premises when violence erupted. Ten skinheads were charged with promoting fascist ideology.
On 18 October 1997 a private skinhead party in St'ahlavy near Plzen was interrupted by police when fascist slogans were heard. The organizer of the gathering, Jaroslav Broz, was at the time serving a suspended two-year prison sentence for organizing violent skinhead meetings.
It was reported on 19 April 1998 that about 100 skinheads celebrated Hitler's birthday in a café in the town of Jesenik in the province of Moravia.
In mid-September 1997 unknown vandals damaged about eighty tombstones in the Jewish cemetery in the north Moravian town of Frydek.
On 26 February 1998 Czech Jewish leader Jan Munk said Czech Jews felt endangered by increasingly frequent and dangerous manifestations of racial hatred. They demanded, he said, a thorough investigation into the recent murder of a twenty-six-year-old Rom woman by three skinheads. He added that Czech Jews were ready to co-operate with all who were interested in taking concrete measures against racially-motivated attacks.
On 9 November 1998 a 17-year-old skinhead stabbed a 22-year-old Jewish soldier in a Prague restaurant. Czech Jewish leader Tomas Kraus said he believed the attack was the first violent antisemitic crime since the fall of Communism in 1989. The suspect is to be charged under the country's hate crimes laws with attempting racially-motivated murder and promoting fascism. As a minor, he faces a maximum sentence of ten years in prison.
On 11 November 1998 headstones in a cemetery in the eastern Czech town of Trutnov were sprayed with anti-Jewish graffiti. A plaque marking the site of the town's former synagogue was also covered in graffiti, as was a monument to Jewish girls used as slave labourers in the Second World War.
On 14 November 1998 Chief Rabbi Karol Sidon and his twelve-year-old son were threatened in central Prague by skinheads. Rabbi Sidon blamed the incident on a lack of police vigilance. Jewish leader Tomas Kraus, who was present at the time of the incident, said: 'Prosecution must be undertaken in a more rigorous way. Criminal acts have to be punished.'
The long-running musical Kryar (Rat Catcher), performed for most of 1997 to packed houses by the Prague theatre ensemble Ta Fantastika, recently provoked an outcry over its allegedly fascist character. The show's music is forceful and militaristic, and accompanied by texts which extol the virtues of cleanliness, law and order, and violence. The musical was written by Daniel Landa, a former far-right skinhead.
In October 1997 a member of the Adventist Church, Vera Vesecka, authorized by that Church and by the education ministry to lecture on Christian ethics, told pupils in a Prague secondary school that the 'Jews crucified Christ and the audience should judge for itself how tragic this act has proved for them'. The issue received wide coverage in the media. Eventually the education minister stated that the ministry would not permit manifestations of racism or antisemitism in Czech schools. Vesecka was stripped by the Adventist Church of her authorization to lecture.
Holocaust denial is evident in the magazine Pochoden dneska (see Publications and media). In one issue, according to Lidove noviny (21 February 1997), the magazine claimed: 'From all sides we are being fed a despicable lie about six million dead Jews in the war.'
Numerous 'skinzines' regularly deny the Holocaust (see Publications and media). For example, a recent issue of Novy narod (New Nation) claimed: 'It is estimated that 250,000 Jews died in the Second World War . . . The six million is a terrible joke and many frightened people are unable to resist it . . . At the moment, there is no scientific proof of the Holocaust. Four scientific teams investigated Auschwitz and concluded that they were unable to locate any gas chambers.'
The distribution of stickers and posters in the streets of Prague and other cities are a favoured method of spreading antisemitic propaganda. In January 1997, for instance, posters which appeared in Prague claimed that the German-Czech declaration of reconciliation (see Parties, organizations, movements) was the result of a Jewish-Zionist-Sudeten German conspiracy. In December 1997 stickers on public walls in Prague referred to a scandal concerning an aborted attempt to sell old Czech tanks to Algeria: 'Through its Obcanska demokraticka aliance [Civil Democratic Alliance, a small parliamentary conservative/liberal political party] Tel Aviv prohibits the sale of our tanks to Algeria.'
It was reported in July 1998 that Josef Krejsa, the editor of Republika, the weekly newspaper of the far-right SPR-RSC (see Parties, organizations, movements), had apologized 'to everyone he ever offended' following the electoral defeat of the SPR-RSC. The Federation of Czech Jewish Communities recently brought a lawsuit against Kresja's paper, accusing it of propagating antisemitism.
Pochoden dneska (Torch of Today, see also Holocaust denial), a magazine which has been published since October 1994 by the Frantisek Ferdinand d'Este Club, has since early 1997 included a skinhead supplement entitled Na rod (The Nation). The supplement has been frequently found in churches in Brno, and its contributors are largely members of the skinhead organization VF which is ideologically close to Pochoden dneska (see Parties, organizations, movements). Both publications attack Jews and Freemasons, using fundamentalist Catholic and nationalist arguments (see Countering antisemitism). The officially registered VF is now also using the Internet to publicize its views.
Amongst the numerous Czech 'skinzines', mostly printed in print-runs of tens or hundreds, Patriot, Hlas krve (Call of Blood), Novy rad (New Order), Fenix (Phoenix) and Skinheadsky stat (Skinhead State) are the most prominent (see also Holocaust denial). These and some international skinzines are distributed through a network of post-office boxes. The Prague post-office box is registered in the name of the international distribution company White Power Music. Some of the skinzines are also on sale in Prague and Brno.
In June 1997 a Czech audio equipment factory in Lodenice near Beroun issued a large number of CDs of neo-Nazi music and accompanying publicity material for use by the German company AFK, which is owned by the German publisher Adrian Preissinger. The factory has produced over 100,000 CDs for AFK in the last few years. According to Der Spiegel, the material also contains works by neo-fascist groups such as Radikal and Kraftschlag. Following the Spiegel investigation, the Lodenice factory suspended production, commenting that it 'fully respects the view that the distribution of recordings containing anti-Jewish, neo-Nazi and racist words is morally unacceptable'. The factory denied any knowledge of the contents of the CDs, which were in German. This incident highlights the fact that the Czech Republic is increasingly used as a servicing country by international far-right organizations, particularly German ones. The relatively cheap rates and lax laws have led to an export boom for Czech factories working in this field. Police are currently investigating the case of a Czech CD entitled 'Skins' Songs Vol. 11' which has an allegedly racist text and is produced by the Austria-based SONY DADC. One song, by the band Valasska Liga, promises that 'a white death will storm into Jewish ghettoes . . .'. This case has been under investigation since 1995, so far without results.
The weekly Nove Bruntalsko (New Bruntal), which first appeared in August 1997, is under investigation by the police. In its September 1997 issue, it claimed that the Czech Republic was a Jewish state and accused the president of being a Freemason. It also published a list of Jews allegedly active in Czech political life. Nove Bruntalsko has a circulation of 4,500. Its publisher is reportedly Ludvlk Zifrcak, a former Communist security official.
A report published by the American Jewish Committee entitled The Treatment of Jewish Themes in Czech Schools was released on 20 October 1998. The author of the report, Leo Pavlat, concluded that the restoration of democracy in the Czech Republic had led to considerable improvement in the educational sphere. Unfortunately, these positive changes have had little impact on the way in which Jewish history, religion and culture is treated in the classroom: 'general awareness of the Jewish presence and culture is low, and a certain section of society still adheres to anti-Semitic stereotypes. Morover, many of today's teachers received their education and teaching practice during the communist era. Some of these people find it hard to get rid of old habits, and they feel uncomfortable with new and more creative methods of teaching. As the Jewish presence in the Czech Republic is almost invisible, teachers generally lack any personal experience of Jewish issues.' Among the problem areas cited is the following: 'The persecution of Jews in the Middle Ages was treated in haphazard fashion, while the ideological basis of anti-Semitism - Jews as "Christ killers" - is greatly underplayed.'
In January 1997 the Prague-based Public Opinon Research Institute published the results of a poll sampling 986 respondents on their attitudes towards life under democracy. Fifty-three per cent of respondents thought anti-Jewish and anti-Rom slogans were incompatible with democracy, 21 per cent thought them in accord with democracy, 9 per cent had other (unspecified) opinions and 17 per cent did not know.
In the same poll, 21 per cent of respondents thought steps taken by the Czech courts, police and local authorities against instances of racial intolerance were adequate, while 61 per cent thought they were insufficient.
A poll published on 12 February 1998 by the Public Opinion Research Institute revealed that one in four Czech citizens admitted to feelings of racial bias towards others, while 16 per cent admitted that they were intolerant towards others for reasons of nationality. National and racial intolerance continues to be directed mainly against the country's Rom population. Two-thirds of those polled identified Roma as the object of such feelings of resentment. The level of intolerance was highest in cities with populations over 100,000 people, particularly in northern Bohemia. Surprisingly, it was people under 19 (25 per cent of those polled) who expressed the most resentment towards others for reasons of nationality. As for the question of whether racism exists in the Czech society, 60 per cent of under-19s said that it does exist, while this figure fell to 42 per cent among the 20-9 age-group. People with a university education were more often inclined to state that racism exists in Czech society than those with secondary school education.
In April 1997 the trial of four members of the SPR-RSC continued in the district court in Litomerice. They were charged with shouting anti-German slogans and violent behaviour against participants during a wreath-laying ceremony in July 1994 on the site of the former Nazi concentration camp in Terezin. Among the four charged were two parliamentary deputies, Josef Krejsa and Rudolf Smucr (see Parties, organizations, movements).
A sixteen-year-old skinhead remains under investigation for the murder of a Sudanese student in Prague on 8 November 1997. The youth is accused of murder and grievous bodily harm. Another skinhead allegedly involved in the murder was released on bail after investigation.
On 5 June 1998 the Czech daily Lidove noviny lodged a criminal complaint against Miroslav Sladek for describing the country's Roma, in a recent party political broadcast for the SPR-RSC, as parasites and murderers.
President Vaclav Havel regularly makes emphatic statements condemning racism and xenophobia in Czech society.
In August 1997 the Prague Jewish Museum published a schoolbook entitled Zide - dejiny a kultura (The History and Culture of the Jews) by a group of Jewish and non-Jewish authors. The book was recommended as an additional text for all primary and secondary schools by the Czech education ministry.
Also in August 1997 the German organization Aktion Suehnezeichen Friedensdienste joined forces with the Ostrava city Jewish community to restore neglected north Moravian Jewish cemeteries. Among the twenty people who took part were young people from Germany, Poland and Hungary.
Pochoden dneska and its skinhead supplement Na rod (see Publications and media) were criticized by the bishop of Brno, Vojtech Cikrle, who, following complaints by churchgoers, denied any connection between the Brno church authorities and the publications. Cikrle declared that 'with their antisemitic and anti-ecumenical attacks they disturb and undermine the friendly relationship between Roman Catholics and their Protestant and Jewish brothers'. He further remarked that he considered membership of the Frantisek Ferdinand d'Este Club incompatible with the principles of the Catholic Church. One of the priests most active in distributing the controversial material was transferred to northern Bohemia.
On 8 May 1998, on the fifty-third anniversary of the successful end of
the Czech national uprising against the Nazi occupation, the Initiative against Racism
organization organized in Prague a march against neo-fascism.
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Institute for Jewish Policy Research and American Jewish Committee
© JPR 1999
