Helga Embacher, Gertrude Enderle-Burcel, Hanns Haas, Charlotte Natmessnig (Hrsg.): Sonderband 5. Vom Zerfall der Grossreiche zur Europäischen Union – Integrationsmodelle im 20. Jahrhundert (2000)
Von der alten zur neuen Ordnung - Marsha Rozenblit: The Crisis of National Identity: Jews and the Collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy
not publicly express their sadness at the collapse of the monarchy. Jews who before the war had identified with the Czech national struggle, of course, supported the new order enthusiastically.21 German-speaking Jews reacted cautiously, expressing their loyalty to the new state, but they were initially anxious about their place within it. They became more confident when they realized that the new Czechoslovakia, like Austria before it, was a multinational state, filled with Czechs, Slovaks, Germans, Magyars, and Jews, whose leaders, especially President Thomas Mas- aryk, would pursue a policy of tolerance for national diversity. In an odd way, Jews came to regard Czechoslovakia as a smaller-scale, improved version of the old monarchy and Masaryk as a stand-in for the beloved Franz Joseph. In late October 1918, before the formal declaration of Czechoslovak independence, but when it was already obvious that such a state would exist, the leaders of the Prague Jewish community worried about the popularity of antisemitism among Czech nationalists, even as they reassured themselves that anti-Jewish hostility derived in part from the traditional pro-Austrian posture of the Jews. Anxiety about antisemitism, fear that Czech leaders might not be able to contain it, and their sense that they had to adjust to new political realities impelled Prague’s Jewish leaders to attempt to impress the new authorities with their loyalty. Expressions of loyalty did not reflect, at least at this point, any heartfelt excitement about a Czech nationstate. An oddly formal quality, a sense of obligation rather than enthusaism characterized the declaration of loyalty they sent to Czech leaders.* * 24 Some Jews in the Czech lands embraced the new state. At the end of the war, Arnold Hindis from Leipnik, Moravia, was a prisoner of war in Russia who desperately wanted to return to his homeland. Upon his arrival there in June 1920 he felt that he was finally a “freier Bürger eines freien Staates”.25 Hella Roubicek Mautner also made the transition from being Austrian to Czechoslovakian without discomfort. She recalled that: Our family had no problem after the fall of the empire because we were bilingual. But for many Jews who had no ties to the Czech population, the change was very hard. I enjoyed it. Other Jews found the need to shift loyalties from Austria to Czechoslovakia far more difficult. Bertha Allerhand Landre, who lived in Austrian Silesia, felt an enormous rupture in her life when her region became part of Czechoslovakia. She did not share in the Czech celebration of independence. The Crisis of National Identity: Jews and the Collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy 21 On Czech Jews see Kieval, Hillel: The Making of Czech Jewry: National Conflict and Jewish Society in Bohemia, 1870-1918. New York 1988, pp. 183-86, 192. 24 Jewish Museum, Prague, IKG-Repräsentanz. Prag (Sitzungsprotokoll, October 27, 1918). 25 Hindis, Arnold: Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben, unpublished memoir. Leo Baeck Institute, pp. 90-91, 97. 26 Hella, transcribed taped reminiscences of Hella Roubicek Mautner privately printed by her children Nelly Urbach and Willy Mautner. Washington D. C. 1996, p. 48. 47
