Czech and German refugees in Paris, 1938-1939

These pictures show arrival and support structures for refugees from the Czech Republic and Germany in Paris in 1938 and 1939.

Czech emigrants in Paris, 1938 © Scherl/Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo

Czech emigrants in the US embassy in Paris, 1939 © Scherl/Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo

Assistance office for German emigrants in Paris, 1939 © Scherl/Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo

The three pictures show Czech and Germany refugees following their arrival in Paris.

The three pictures show Czech and Germany refugees following their arrival in Paris.

The first picture shows emigrants from Czechoslovakia with luggage upon their arrival at the Gare de l’Est station in Paris in September 1938. They had fled to France as a result of the occupation of the Sudetenland by the German Reich, which the Czechoslovak government had been forced to comply with by the Munich Agreement of 1938. The second picture shows Czech emigrants six months later, in March 1939, at the US embassy in Paris, where they are waiting for the issuance of an American visa to continue their journey.

The last picture shows the Hilfsbüro für deutsche Emigranten in Paris in 1939. In view of the unsettled situation in France, staying in Paris in 1939 was no longer an option for most emigrants; they too requested visas for the United States and other countries in order to escape the impending war, which began in September of the same year with the German invasion of Poland.

 

Photo 1: Czech emigrants in Paris, 25.09.1938 © Scherl/Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo
Photo 2: Czech emigrants in the US embassy in Paris, 27.03.1939 © Scherl/Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo
Photo 3: Assistance Office for German Refugees in Paris, 1939 © Scherl/Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo

Published here with kind permission from Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo.