The General and Primary Jewish School in Jáchymova Street was founded in 1920 by the Jewish School Association, which strove to preserve the Jewish identity of the younger generation. Paradoxically, the school acquired its greatest scope and importance only at a time when Jewish children were forbidden to be educated anywhere else.
Five rooms in the school building were made available to the Committee for the Relief of Jewish Refugees from Germany, established in 1933. The Committee coordinated the assistance provided by the individual Jewish communities to people crossing Czechoslovak border, helping them to arrange residence permits and also to find opportunities for emigration.
The number of refugees steadily increased as the Nazi terror escalated. The occupation of the Czechoslovak borderlands turned the situation into a complete disaster. Nationalist circles took power in the country, the so-called Second Republic. The Bar Association and the Medical Chamber expelled their Jewish members, thus depriving them of their jobs, then on 13 December 1938 a government declaration expressed the need to "solve the Jewish question", so that on 27 January 1939 the Czechoslovak government adopted a decree on the removal of Jews from the civil service, initiating a review of state citizenship. All "foreigners, if they were emigrants" had to leave Czechoslovak territory within six months.
Paul Freud was born on 25 October 1918 in Vienna, his mother was from Moravia, his father from Transylvania.
After Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany, he tried to cross the border into Switzerland, but the border was already heavily guarded. He gave up his attempt to cross into France and decided to flee to Czechoslovakia. However, he was detained by the Prague police. Fortunately, he was given the choice of where he wanted to be deported. So instead of Nazi Austria, he was deported to Romania, to Satu Mare. Almost immediately he crossed the Czechoslovak border again and took refuge with relatives in Loštice, where his mother was from. He managed to obtain the documents and funds needed to travel to the international city of Shanghai, where he survived the war in the Hongkew ghetto, set up by the Japanese occupiers for refugees from Europe.
The interview was filmed on November 25, 1995 in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, U.S.A.
Why did refugees from Nazi Germany flee to Czechoslovakia?