The 1998 general elections resulted in an important turnabout in the
fortunes of the Assembly for the Republic--Czech Republican Party, which lost
their parliamentary representation. The occurrence of several violent anti-Semitic
incidents prompted a warning from the Federation of Czech Jewish
Communities that anti-Semitism in the country was on the rise. In early 1999
the Czech authorities launched an aggressive campaign to stamp out racism,
in response to warnings by the European Union on the prospects of the Czech
Republic joining the community.

THE JEWISH COMMUNITY
The Czech Republic has some 5,000 Jews out of a total population of 10.5
million. The great majority are concentrated in Prague, with smaller communities
in Brno, Plzen and Olomouc. The main communal organization is
the Federation of Czech Jewish Communities; other Jewish organizations
include the Society for Jewish Culture, the Franz Kafka Society and the Union
of Jewish Youth. The community is largely secular, with increasing religious
activity which, until recently, was carried out mostly during the holidays. The
Lauder Foundation sponsors a Talmud Torah and a Jewish kindergarten.
Jewish organizations take an active part in the restoration of Jewish sites and
property as well as in fostering educational activity at the Terezin concentration
camp site.
There has been a significant renaissance of Jewish life, marked by an
exploration of Jewish roots, and many Czechs are showing a greater interest
in the Jewish legacy of their country. This upsurge of interest in Jewish
culture, also fueled by the arrival of Western Jews to work in the country, is
well reflected in the Czech media and in the numerous cultural activities
focusing on the Jewish heritage. Important community events in 1998 were
the establishment of a Jewish gymnasium in Prague and the reopening of the
restored Spanish synagogue there.

POLITICAL PARTIES AND EXTRA-PARLIAMENTARY GROUPS
The 1998 general elections resulted in an important turnabout in the fortunes
of the Assembly for the Republic--Czech Republican Party (Republicans;
AFR-RSC), which lost their parliamentary representation. Having won
8 percent of the votes in the 1996 elections, the Republicans, led by Miroslav
Sladek, reduced their shared to only 3.9 percent. The Republicans had the
most significant right-wing extremist representation in a former communist
state. Moreover, Sladek's extremist statements on Roma, Jews, Germans and
all foreigners in the Czech Republic were amply covered by the local and
foreign media; in fact, it seemed that the Republicans, and especially their
leader, were deliberately provoking scandal and violent incidents in order to
attract public attention. Sladek's call for the restoration of the death sentence,
and for the en masse expulsion of Roma were among their principal
propaganda motifs, while his strongly xenophobic line was a constant insult
to the legacy of the Velvet Revolution of Vaclev Havel.
The Republicans are the only notable organization on the extreme right.
While there has been no significant growth in membership and in numbers
of sympathizers of ultra-right organizations, extremism is far from having
been eliminated in the Czech Republic. The new government led by the
Social Democrats, formed in July 1998, has to cope with a deteriorating
economic situation, which may serve as a breeding ground for the
intensification of extremist activities. The Czechs, as Time magazine noted in
its issue of 15 March 1999, "struggle to mend the tattered remnants of the
'Velvet Revolution'." The present hardships may bring about an increase in
the vocal propaganda of extremist elements.

ANTI-SEMITIC ACTIVITIES
The occurrence of several violent anti-Semitic incidents prompted a warning
from the Federation of Czech Jewish Communities that anti-Semitism in the
country was on the rise. Jewish memorial sites were vandalized in the town
of Trutnov on 11 November 1998, the sixtieth anniversary of Kristallnacht.
Slogans, such as "Juden Raus" and "Death to the Jews," were smeared on
headstones in the cemetery, forty of which were overturned. A month later
the authorities arrested four young men, three of them minors, who were to
be charged under the anti-hate crime laws. The economically-depressed
town of Trutnov has no Jewish population, so the vandals appear to have
vented their rage against the symbols of Nazi atrocities. Further, a young
Jewish soldier serving in the Czech army was hospitalized after being
attacked by skinheads in a Prague pub. The soldier had allegedly asked the
skinheads to cease making anti-Semitic remarks. A rabbi who censured the
incident was verbally abused a few days later when he passed by a gathering
of young left-wing supporters. In its warning, the Federation of Jewish
Communities referred to the growing number of incidents involving
skinheads acting against both Jews and Roma.
The principal extremist publications disseminating anti-Semitism are
Narodni Boj (National Struggle), Pochoden Denska (Torch of Today) and
Dnesek (Today). Several dozen others, distributed among skinheads and containing
mainly racist propaganda, appear on an irregular basis.

ATTITUDES TOWARD THE HOLOCAUST AND THE NAZI ERA
In the Czech Republic cases of Holocaust denial are rare. In the past few
years, Czech society has attempted to cope with some of the taboos on the
years of the Nazi occupation, enforced during the years of the communist
regime. This has included soul-searching on the nature of collaboration and
the low level of effective resistance. Such an approach precludes denial of
the Holocaust; in fact, recent Czech scholarship has emphasized the suffering
and fate of the Jewish community.
However, it seems that basic information about the Jews and their past is
still lacking in Czech schools. A study by the American Jewish Committee,
published in 1998, revealed that very few textbooks explain the significance
of Judaism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia.

RESPONSES TO RACISM AND ANTI-SEMITISM
In early 1999 the Czech authorities launched an aggressive campaign to
stamp out racism. The police raid on a skinhead gathering in Plzen was a
major sign of this new drive. Neo-Nazi merchandise, a standard feature at
such meetings, was confiscated. Behind the new and tougher measures to
crack down on extremist, racist elements was a clear attempt by the authorities
to heed the warnings issued by the European Union on the prospects
of the Czech Republic's joining the community should racist attacks persist.
The major targets of racist attacks continue to be the Roma, whose plight
was further highlighted in 1998 by their attempts to emigrate to Canada and
Great Britain. A government commission on Roma affairs documented some
one hundred criminal assaults against them in 1997 -- a 50 percent increase
over the previous year.
Police investigations and legal procedures against perpetrators of racist
attacks are often slow, as is the case in other East European states. The
judicial authorities are aware of the urgency of dealing with the growing
number of such attacks, but not much has been done to deal more effectively
and rapidly with perpetrators. In cases of attacks against Roma, the picture
is more complex: acts of violence are committed against them, often
following theft or violence committed by the Roma themselves, thus creating
a vicious circle of violence. The "Roma problem" has come to the forefront
of public debate in the Czech Republic and, as in neighboring East European
states, the majority will have to find a solution to the difficult social and
economic problems of this alienated minority.