14 No. 74 JUSTICE in post-war Czechoslovakia. The decrees treated German and Hungarian citizens as collectively guilty for the wartime actions of the Hungarian and German governments, stripping them of their Czechoslovak citizenship and property. This applied to nearly all ethnic Germans and Hungarians, including some whose ancestors had lived in the territory of Czechoslovakia for centuries before World War II. Individuals, deemed “nationally unreliable,” were placed under so called “national administration,” which effectively transferred their properties to the state. This designation included those who had declared German or Hungarian nationality in any census after 1929 — criteria that applied to many Jews in Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia. The decrees deprived them of Czechoslovak citizenship and excluded them from restitution rights. Although the legislature in 1946, following the first democratic elections, eased the earlier restrictions and allowed surviving Jews affected by the decrees to apply for the restoration of their citizenship and the return of their property, these applications were frequently denied. The committees tasked with reviewing the claims often refused to approve them. It is estimated that between 2,000 and 3,000 Jewish survivors in Bohemia and Moravia, and over 10,000 in Slovakia, were denied citizenship and the associated rights. A particularly shocking example of this injustice is the case of Dr. Ungerová, a physician who escaped to England during the war. While in England, she volunteered at a hospital for Czechoslovak soldiers. After the war, she returned to Czechoslovakia and volunteered to combat the typhus epidemic in the Terezín concentration camp. Despite her efforts, her application for Czechoslovak citizenship was unanimously rejected by the relevant committee in Prague. The reasoning was that her mother tongue was German. She and her parents were classified as Germans of Jewish faith. The committee argued that, for this reason, she couldn't maintain “positive ties” to the Czech nation. Devastated by this decision, Dr. Ungerová tragically took her own life. With regard to property, by the end of the war, all Jewish property in Poland that had not been destroyed fell into the hands of non-Jews. One estimate suggests that 2.5 million people in villages and small towns took possession of these properties. Although post-war laws provided for fair restitution, some representatives of democratic political parties returning from exile in the West considered these laws harmful and unenforceable. They argued that the redistribution of Jewish property had actually brought positive changes to Polish society. The appropriation of Jewish property had elevated previously impoverished social classes, creating a new property-owning class that would now replace the Jews in society. Reversing this transformation was viewed as undesirable and impossible. The renowned Polish historian Jan Gross quotes a foreign policy expert in the Polish government-in-exile, who warned: “Should the Jews attempt to return en masse, people would not perceive it as a restoration but as an invasion, and they would resist, even by physical means.” Tragically, this prediction proved accurate. After the war, anti-Jewish pogroms erupted in several rural settlements in Poland, the most infamous occurring in Kielce. The prevailing public opinion and societal attitudes of the time regarded the appropriation of Jewish property as natural and just — a correction of prior social inequalities — while the idea of returning it to its rightful owners was viewed as a grave social injustice. Legislation aimed at restitution proved largely ineffective, particularly at the local bureaucratic level because officials often prioritized the majority's “sense of justice” over the rule of law. The antisemitism prevailing among the authorities sometimes led local officials to turn a blind eye even to war crimes. This dynamic is vividly illustrated in an incident recalled by Jan Gross. A survivor, whose entire family had been deported and killed, he learned from a distant relative that his brother's young daughter was living in a nearby hamlet with a Pole. She wanted to turn to the local authorities, but it was in vain. She was told that the Pole, who was childless, and allegedly — I quote her testimony — killed my brother and my sister-in-law … treats the child well and under no condition will return her. It is possible he killed the parents to keep the child. … The little girl is four years old. I don’t even know what they call her now. I went to see a prosecutor, but nothing can be done at present. Certainly, something could have been legally done — comments Jan Gross on the testimony. However, law enforcement officers showed little interest in prosecuting wartime crimes against Jews. Witnesses, often family members, faced intimidation or were dissuaded from pursuing charges due to lengthy and burdensome legal processes. In some cases, wartime perpetrators had secured influential positions in local administrations, further obstructing justice. It is no wonder that the many surviving Jews either fled to larger cities or emigrated
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