Abstract
Although thousands of refugees were brought from Czechoslovakia to Britain under the umbrella of the Czech Refugee Trust Fund (CRTF) in the period immediately leading up to the outbreak of the Second World War, and some 12,000 were wholly or partly maintained by the Trust in Britain in wartime, this is the first English language account to look closely at how the CRTF functioned in Britain.
This absence has several causes: contention between the British Government, the Czech Government in exile and the CRTF, and also amongst the organizers of the Fund and the refugees themselves. This makes any historiography of this organization more hazardous. In addition, much of the source material was previously inaccessible.
The CRTF was established by the British Government in July 1939, largely funded by, and answerable to, them. (One explanation for the Government's largesse was Chamberlain's signing of the Munich agreement.) The working structure of CRTF was inherited from an earlier organization, the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia (BCRC), founded in 1938, a voluntary organization, established in response to the 1938 Munich Agreement. The BCRC and then the CRTF took on many responsibilities: obtaining visas to get people out of Czechoslovakia, then feeding, watering and ensuring they had somewhere to lay their heads (later also retraining).
Remarkably, just between July and September 1939, 8000 people were assisted to get out of Czechoslovakia. By the end of 1939, the trust was responsible for approximately 12,000 refugees: 6,000 Czechs, 3,000 Sudeten Germans, 300 Czech ‘minorities’, 1,100 (Reich) Germans, 800 Austrians, and 800 unclassified. In addition, 650 children came out on the Czech Kindertransport, though this is not explored in detail.
There were serious problems from the beginning. Given their limited funds and limited personnel, who of those living in Czechoslovakia was the CRTF to favour? About 5,000 anti-Nazis and Jews (overlapping categories) had fled Germany, from March 1933, and Austria, mainly after March 1938, to Czechoslovakia. An added complexity was the Sudeten Germans, ‘claimed’ by Nazi Germany in October 1938, which had precipitated about 30,000 internal antifascist refugees. In addition, there were those non-Sudeten Czechs, who, whether antifascist, Jewish or both, needed to escape after the invasion of March 1939. How to prioritize these groups?
Another division was between different political groups. The failure of the Social Democrats and the Communists to form any sort of official anti-Nazi alliance against the Nazis is notorious. Enmity between the exiles of different political allegiances persisted in Czechoslovakia and later in the UK. The CRTF was accused of disproportionately favouring left-wing, especially Communist, refugees.
The question of who was to be saved links into the political preferences of those who staffed the CRTF. Some evidence does suggest that the crucial ‘people-shifters’ were predominantly Communist. Indeed, following recommendations by MI5, eight of the British staff were dismissed after they had been revealed as members of the Communist Party, including the indispensable Yvonne Kapp. There were other tensions. Doreen Warriner, one of the many women the book highlights as crucial to the operation of CRTF and who was largely based in Prague, was highly critical of the tardiness and bureaucratic hoops of the London-based organization (which led to her threatened dismissal).
The desperation over who would be chosen to get into Britain exacerbated tensions amongst the left. Some Communists accused each other and others who had left the Party, of betrayal, and, on occasion, of working for, or at least in association with, the Gestapo. Such accusations at times influenced the CRTF.
For whatever reasons, the book does not go into as much detail on the tensions within the Social-Democratic camp. The leader of the Sudeten German Social-Democratic Group encouraged his members to spy on each other and maybe report to the police. A leading officer of the CRTF also instructed him to stop his members continually intriguing against the Communists. The dislike between Communist and Social-Democratic refugees at times created much tension which the CRTF had to handle, for example in the hostels where the refugees were accommodated.
The CRTF attempted to recognize the many differences by establishing a system of ‘Arbeitskreis’, whereby the refugees were formed into groups according to their nationality and political affiliation. While helping give the different groups of refugees a sense of identity, this system could also exacerbate divisions. Each group complained about persecution by the others, even including death threats. The Trust attempted, with some success, to calm things down.
The changing political situation threw up further conflicts. Though war was declared on 1 September 1939, the Hitler-Stalin Pact, which lasted from 23 August 1939 to June 1941, led to the Communist Party during this period arguing that Britain was playing an imperialist role. Not all Communists went along with the Party line, but it is understandable that this position gave rise to widespread animosity.
Certainly, the British Security Service was much exercised by the large numbers of Communist refugees admitted. Already in 1938/1939, MI5 had advised against the admission of foreign Communists, even though they were especially endangered under Nazism. MI5 kept around 100 German-speaking Communists in at least three separate regionally based groups, under surveillance, including in their hostels, as, indeed, it did the CRTF, described as ‘this appalling organization’. Refugees acting for MI5 declaimed (with some reason) against some Communist refugees for propagandizing and recruiting.
The book goes into the complexities of who to intern: Czechs were ‘friendly aliens’, but who could claim to be Czech? And what was to be done with the Sudeten German Czechs? Some of these refugees underwent the privations of being sent to the Dominions. MI5's desire to have all Communists interned was partly curtailed by the more liberal Home Office. The entry of the Soviet Union on the side of the Allies helped to gain the release from internment of many Communist refugees.
As the Allies finally started to win the war, issues around whether the refugees wished to remain or return came increasingly to the fore, handled by CRTF. Most of the political refugees were keen to return home to help rebuild their countries, though this was not the case for many of the Jewish refugees (though the two categories overlapped). But some Social Democrats wished to remain, concerned over what would happen to the Sudetenland.
The book goes into the infinite obstacles that the Government put in place to prevent or discourage Communist refugees from Germany and Austria from returning. Czechs of Slav origin were largely repatriated, but only some of the Sudeten Germans. By March 1946, the Trust was only responsible for around 8500 refugees. Slowly, CRTF clients wishing to remain in Britain were granted citizenship. Out of the 12,000 refugees who had been under the care of the Trust, approximately 50 per cent remained in Britain, 20 per cent returned ‘home’ and 30 per cent emigrated to a new country (including Sudeten Germans who ended up in Germany).
The final section of the book considers the renewed and complex role of the CRTF after the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in February 1948, which caused a new exodus, not just of Social Democrats but also some Communists. From 1948 to December 1949, 1281 refugees were registered by the CRTF, and 1020 in 1950. Indeed, some of the people who ended up in Britain were second-time refugees here.
By the time the CRTF was closed in 1975, it had helped some 15,000 refugees, mostly anti-Nazis, either leading up to, during or after the Second World War who might otherwise might well not have survived or would have been destitute in Britain. We can only welcome that their contribution has finally been recognized.