After May 1945, Jewish nationality was abolished, as a part of efforts to make post-war Czechoslovakia a country free of national minorities, which were perceived as the source of all the problems leading up to the Munich Agreement. Citizenship was restored only to those people who had not written in German as a nationality in the 1930 census, eight years before Munich. Otherwise, they, including Jews returning from concentration camps, were subject to the Beneš decrees, the threat of further deportation, and because they did not get their citizenship back, their property was confiscated as German.
A group of citizens, previously affected by the anti-Jewish legislation of the Nazi regime, tried to explain to the authorities that they should not fall under the regular program of deportation of the German population. In cooperation with Jewish communities, they filled out questionnaires that were supposed to help them gain the opportunity to take personal property abroad, such as duvets and clothes. These questionnaires capture many moving stories, especially of the so-called mixed marriages, when during the war one of the partners protected the other from deportation, and after the war the other would protect the former from deportation as well.
Dr. Ludwig Grunt, living in Most at Maršála Koněva 3/76, applied for emigration to Germany or America in order to "establish a new existence" for himself, his wife and daughter. In accordance with the requirements of the authorities, which continued to work with Nazi definitions, he stated that his wife Dagmar was a German of Jewish origin and his daughter Dagmar was only a German of semi-Jewish origin. Both were born in Most.
Erich Johann Peduzzi, a native of Most, also lived at the same address, and also wanted to emigrate to Germany and later overseas in order to establish a new existence. As he stated, he was persecuted for racial reasons, his shop and house in Most were confiscated by the Nazis, and he was put to the worst jobs as a day laborer.
The application of Jindřich Beer, a native of Most, who settled in Děčín after the war, was gradually marked with colorful Nazi labels such as a half-Jew and a first-degree half-breed. He wanted to move to Munich with his wife Maria and daughter Jenny, where his daughter-in-law Erna Beerová already lived. During the war, he was imprisoned with other similarly racially classified men from Most, Ústí nad Labem and the surrounding area in the Kassel-Edersee concentration camp, where he suffered a serious injury. According to preserved correspondence, he arranged for another 25 families to emigrate through UNRRA.
Do you remember what Suri Lebovic was afraid of after accidentally overhearing a conversation on the street? What do you think about her fear?