'Our Overseas Staff Members Have Terminated Their Services Here': The AJDC Staff Leaves Czechoslovakia after 1948

• In Event: Emigration, Collectivization, and Desecration: The State Management of Jewish (and Israeli) Affairs in Global Perspective

Abstract

When we consider the population flows out of Czechoslovakia following the change of regime in February 1948, it is important to situate the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (AJDC) staff among them. The new set of governmental departure practices the AJDC staff encountered puzzled and frustrated them, from the minutia of “the packing people” examining dress seams and shoulder pads to sifting through tooth powder. This paper sets the departure of the emigration facilitators against the backdrop of the newly consolidating regime and its state security practices within the larger context of people on the postwar move with special attention to time as a control mechanism.

Author

• Rebekah Klein-Pejsova, Purdue U