LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
CZECHS AND GERMANS
Si:11,—ft is somewhat surprising that there appears to have been no criticism in your columns of the extraordinary letter on Czechs and Germans from Mr. Wenzel Jaksch that appeared in The Spectator of January 4th. The letter is as notable for what it omits as for its meagre statements of certain facts which may be quite correct but which require to be set in their actual background, in order that their significance may be properly understood. For instance, Mr. Jaksch writes: "The Nazis closed down the Czech Universities and Technical High Schools only." Not one word about the hundreds of Czech students attending the same universities and technical schools who were executed by the firing squads of the Gestapo and German Army. Not one word about the professors and teachers who were driven out and deprived not only of their liveli- hood but of all means of cultural contact with their fellow countrymen. No mention of the pogroms and terroristic methods used as ordinary instruments of policy by the German authorities in order to break the spirit and resolution of the Czech people.
Can Mr. Jaksch prove that the Germans only closed down Universities and technical schools? I doubt it. Then he appears to consider that the transfer of t,too,000 able-bodied Czechs out of 8,000,00o total popu- lation to Germany for forced labour can be equated with the decision of the Czechs to transfer the greater part of their German population to Germany, which has used these same Sudeten Germans as instruments in order to enable it to effect its evil purpose of robbing the whole Czech nation of its independence.
And this, after Czechoslovakia had agreed to surrender the Sudeten German districts to Hitler's demands, and Hitler had most solemnly assured the Czechs that his demands were now satisfied. No one wishes the Sudeten Germans to suffer unduly, but it is not possible to conceive how Czechoslovakia could retain within her borders over two million Germans who had plainly shown that they did not regard Czecho- slovakia as their fatherland, and that their allegiance to it was only nominal.
Because a proportion of the Czech workers may have gone to Germany of their own will it does not follow that they went because they liked it, or that they would not much rather have remained at home. What else could they do? If they had refused they would still have been carried CO Germany just the same. In connection with this Mr. Jaksch appears to think the Slovaks have no right to be in the new State because they voted by a large majority for Hitler's new order. Would he claim that their vote was a free one? It was given under duress, and was no more indicative of willingness to join the German Reich than wete the young Czechs who went to Germany to work of their own "nominal" free will. President Hacha signed away his country's independence by his own hand, but only after ruthless bullying and mental torture. No doubt Germans claim it was of his own free will.
It is difficult to believe that the slave workers found anything but a small portion of their belongings intact when they returned to their homes, in view of the systematic robbery by the German authorities of all instruments of production, manufacture and even of domestic use from not only Czechoslovakia but most of occupied Europe.
This would account for the condition of some of the camps being as stated by the Under-Secretary of State, Mr. McNeil," far from desirable." What else could be expected? Czechoslovakia, like other occupied
• countries, had been skinned to the bone of everything usable for the benefit of Germany and Germans and could not do any better.—! am,
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