Content area
Full Text
(ProQuest: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.)
After decades of research in Holocaust studies, it is surprising how little we know about what happened to the Jews of Bohemia and Moravia during World War II. Livia Rothkirchen's new monograph is the most substantial book on the topic in English and thus offers a very useful gateway to further reading and research. The book begins with the paradox that the Holocaust was as horribly thorough in Bohemia and Moravia, as in other lands, despite the Czechs' reputation for tolerance. This premise of Czech tolerance informs the entire work and is the source of both its strengths and weaknesses.
The book's early chapters support the idea of a special Czech-Jewish relationship based on "centuries-old spiritual ties between Czechs and Jews" (xii, 5). The prologue cites liturgy, legends, and literature to illustrate the interest of Czech religious leaders and intellectuals in the Jewish Bible, but these sources say little about Czech attitudes toward actual Jews. The first chapter adds a selective review of ten centuries of Bohemian history, with an emphasis on moments of coexistence. The second chapter follows with a useful recapitulation of what is known about Jews in the First Czechoslovak Republic (1918-38). On the whole, however, Zionism is overemphasized in the book's early chapters, which seek partially to support the prologue's claim: "There is a distinct symmetry between [the] Czech and Jewish renascence unparalleled between other nations, augmented by the unique role played throughout history by both Prague and Jerusalem as citadels of national struggle and fulfillment" (2).
By contrast, subsequent chapters effectively challenge this rosy picture of Czech-Jewish...