When German troops marched into Prague, Czechoslovakia, on March 15, 1939, Hitler declared that history would remember him as the greatest German of all time. To Prague, certainly, he was the most destructive of interlopers.

By seizing the Czech provinces of Bohemia and Moravia, Hitler delivered 120,000 Jews into the hands of the SS. Half of Prague's roughly 50,000 Jews were refugees from Germany. Forced to flee again, many sought refuge in Poland and Hungary. Thousands appealed in vain for asylum in Western Europe. Within a half-year, more than 30,000 Jews were forced to emigrate. Of the 90,000 who remained, only 10,000 would survive Nazi rule.

Nazi ordinances stripped Czech Jews of their livelihoods. Laws excluded them from professions, shut down businesses, froze bank accounts, and allowed for confiscation of property. SS terror campaigns featured staged anti-Jewish riots, antisemitic exhibitions, and systematic beatings of Jewish children in city parks. Strict curfews with heavy fines prompted special "hunts" for violators.

The Gestapo's mass expulsion policy demanded the emigration of 70,000 Jews within one year. Rounded up from the provinces and herded into Prague, a quota of 200 had to leave daily--and pay a "flight tax." With no place to go, many were loaded onto trains, transported to unknown destinations, or dumped at borders.