page_title: The Holocaust in the Sudetenland
section_title: Annexation and flight
hierarchical_section_title: The Holocaust in the Sudetenland / Annexation and flight
context_page_description: The Holocaust in the Sudetenland resulted in the flight, dispossession, deportation and ultimately death of many of the 24,505 Jews living in the Reichsgau Sudetenland, a Nazi German administrative region established from former Czechoslovak territory annexed after the October 1938 Munich Agreement. Due to harassment and violence, including during Kristallnacht, ninety percent of the Jews had already left the Sudetenland by mid-1939. The remaining Jews were subject to property confiscation and eventually deportation. During the later years of the war, tens of thousands of Jews and non-Jews were forced laborers in a network of concentration camps in the Sudetenland.
  After the war, Jewish communities in the former Sudetenland suffered losses due to the discrimination against German-speaking Jews under the postwar Czechoslovak government, but were partially replenished by arrivals from Carpathian Ruthenia.
context_section_description: In September 1938, Henlein formed the Sudetendeutsches Freikorps (Sudeten German Free Corps) to conduct guerilla war against Czechoslovakia. Jewish-owned businesses in Eger (Cheb), Karlsbad, and Asch (Aš) were attacked, although Freikorps involvement has never been proven. Many Jews fled the violence: Warnsdorf (Varnsdorf) and Komotau (Chomutov), which had hundreds of Jewish residents in the 1930 census, declared themselves Judenfrei before the end of September. Due to the violence against Austrian Jews after the Anschluss in March 1938, the Jews of the Sudetenland were aware of the dangers of Nazi rule.
  On 30 September 1938, the Munich Agreement was signed without Czechoslovak participation, ceding the Sudetenland to Nazi Germany. Between 1 and 10 October, the Czechoslovak Army withdrew. The Wehrmacht—greeted by most Germans as liberators—temporarily set up a military administration, while Henlein was appointed Reichskommissar. In between the departure of the Czechoslovak authorities and the arrival of the German ones, SdP supporters and the Freikorps unleashed "unbridled terror" with acts of violence and vandalism against Jews and Czechs; Jewish businesses—especially in Aussig (Ústí nad Labem)—were targeted again. In the wake of the German invasion force, Einsatzgruppen units followed, to become the main instrument of Nazi repression as they had done after the Anschluss, according to lists of anti-Nazis already developed by the SD  (Sicherheitsdienst). The Gestapo office in Eger reported 971 arrests by 14 October, and the Karlsbad office reported 1,157 arrests by 7 November. Although Jews were not explicitly targeted as a group, many were arrested as political offenders. Many of the people arrested (10,000 by early 1939) were held in detention centers in the Sudetenland, while thousands were deported to concentration camps in Germany.
  Many Jews who had not already fled, often those elderly or with significant property that they did not wish to abandon, were visited by the Gestapo shortly after the German invasion and forced to sign papers promising to leave within six days. The authorities were encouraged to search the residence of all Jews for "subversive material" and "stolen goods". Many Jews fled with nothing more than personal valuables and sometimes machines from factories that they owned. German authorities sought to use the refugees, who mostly fled to the rump Czechoslovak state, to destabilize that state and increase antisemitism among Czechs. Some refugees were sent back by the Czechoslovak authorities and had to wait in the no-man's land for their cases to be resolved, despite the fact that the Munich Agreement entitled them to retain their Czechoslovak citizenship.
  During Kristallnacht (9–10 November 1938), Jews and Czechs were attacked and their stores raided. Most synagogues—including those in Teplitz-Schönau, Reichenberg, Troppau (Oprava), Jägerndorf (Krnov), Falkenau  (Sokolov) and Brüx (Most)—were destroyed; others, such as those in Aussig and Tetschen (Děčín), were damaged with smashed windows. Jewish communities were billed for the cost of demolishing the synagogues that were damaged beyond repair. Perpetrators included SdP members, SS (Schutzstaffel), SA (Sturmabteilung), and local Germans. The number of Jews who were killed is unknown.  In the wake of the pogrom, more Jews were arrested, detained either in temporary "wild camps" or deported to the Old Reich. At least 12,000 Jews had fled the Sudetenland by the beginning of November. By May 1939 only  2,363 "full Jews" (ten percent of the pre-war population) remained in the Reichsgau Sudetenland, along with 2,183 first-degree Mischlinge and 1,396  second-degree Mischlinge.
  On 14 March 1939, the Slovak State declared independence with German support. Carrying out plans made since October 1938, Germany invaded the Czech rump state, establishing the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Most refugees from the Sudetenland therefore fell under Nazi rule. Those who did not manage to emigrate were deported from the Protectorate, especially in the first tra
caption: Partition of Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939