Abstract
The Jew in Czech and Slovak Imagination, 1938-89 is the first critical inquiry into the nature of anti-Jewish prejudices in both main parts of former Czechoslovakia. The authors identify anti-Jewish prejudices over almost fifty years of the twentieth century, focusing primarily on the post-Munich period and the Second World War (1938-45), the post-war reconstruction (1945-48), as well as the Communist rule with both its thaws and returns to hardline rule (1948-89).
It is a provocative examination of the construction of the image of 'the Jew' in the Czech and Slovak majority societies, the assigning of character and other traits - real or imaginary - to individuals or groups. The book analyses the impact of these constructed images on the attitudes of the majority societies towards the Jews, and on Holocaust memory in the country.