Československé vysílání BBC a Židé během druhé světové války
The Czechoslovak Section of the BBC and the Jews during the Second World War

Summary/Abstract: The original English version of this article was published under this same title in Yad Vashem Studies, vol. 38 (2010), no. 2, pp. 123–53. The article considers how and why the fate of the Jews in occupied Europe, including the Shoah, was presented by Czechoslovak exiles in London to their homeland during the Second World War. The author outlines the influences that the British governmental authorities had on Czechoslovak transmissions of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and points out that informing BBC listeners about the Nazi persecution of the Jews must be considered in the context of the propaganda aims of the Allies – both the British and the Czechoslovak resistance at home and abroad. The content of the broadcasts had to react to the propaganda of the Nazis and their collaborators, which depicted the government-in-exile as exponents of the alleged influence of world Jewry, and also to the growing antisemitic feeling in the Protectorate. It was therefore a sensitive topic from the standpoint of the politicians in exile, and this led the politicians at the top to make only wary and infrequent references to the tragedy of the Jews. In his analysis, the author focuses on political commentaries, which he considers to provide the best material for his topic. He finds them to be clear, informative and humanitarian, with a dual accent, intended both as a warning to the Germans and as an appeal to the Czechs at home to help their Jewish fellow citizens. He points to the different strategies used in the transmission of programmes to the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and those to Slovakia. The transmissions to the Protectorate sometimes contained detailed reports about the persecution of the Jews, but they were linked to the suffering of the Czech nation, to whose interests the provision of information was fully subordinated. The moral and democratic qualities of the Czechs were also emphasized, which were allegedly manifested in the Czechs’ distancing themselves from antisemitism and showing instead their solidarity with the victims of violence, whereby the Czechs were to win the sympathy and support of the civilized world. By contrast, the chief aim of broadcasts to Slovakia was to clear the local population of the well-founded suspicion of their sympathizing with the local pro-German regime and its role in the Shoah.

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