ABSTRACT
This chapter describes how ‘Jewish Problem’ developed in the very different environments of Poland and Czechoslovakia, both states in which national questions were to be at the very centre of political life throughout the inter-war years. The outbreak of war in August 1914 was to influence greatly the development of the Jewish Question throughout Central and Eastern Europe, including what was to become independent Czechoslovakia. Of perhaps greater significance for the development of the Jewish Question in Czechoslovakia was the ‘conversion’ of Masaryk to the Zionist position. More curious is the lack of attention received both inside and outside Czechoslovakia, when anti-Jewish unrest, beginning with attacks in Prague of an anti-German character on 1 and 2 of December 1918, actually did occur in the Bohemian Crownlands. In anticipation of Masaryk’s return to Czechoslovakia and the coming peace negotiations, it was anxious not to undermine its chances of winning official recognition of the Jews’ status as a National Minority.
