College Record 2019

for the Czechoslovak Civil Service as an
official in the Ministry of Social Welfare. In
September 1938, the Sudetenland, the area
near the border where German speakers
were in a majority, was ceded to Germany,
endorsed by the Munich Agreement. Hans’
job at the Ministry involved welfare for
anti-Nazi refugees from the Sudetenland,
amid an atmosphere of growing support
for the Nazis among the German-speaking
community in Prague. On 9 January 1939,
he was given notice of dismissal from the
Ministry, to take effect in March. No reason
was given, but it was undoubtedly because
of his political views and his active support
for the anti-Nazi Social Democratic Party,
expressed for example in an article he
published in 1938 entitled Aufbau und Schutz
der Demokratie (Building and Protecting
Democracy).
So, from January 1939, Hans and Willy
accelerated their plans to leave for Britain
in March. Hans wrote to the Society for
the Protection of Science and Learning in
London. This was an organisation that had
been founded in 1933 with the express
purpose of giving support to academics
who had been forced to leave Germany,
and later Austria and Czechoslovakia, by the
Nazis. SPSL sent a letter to Hans, which he
hoped would help him to be allowed to
enter Britain. Willy registered as an external
student at London University and wrote to
his English penfriend, Donald, who enlisted
the help of his father, Barclay Baron, a
liberal-minded social reformer, who played a
prominent part in Toc H.
They planned to leave by an early train on
Wednesday, 15 March. On the day before,
Slovakia declared its independence. Emil
Hácha, the President of Czechoslovakia,
was in a very weak position with regard
to Germany since the annexation of the
Sudetenland had stripped Czechoslovakia of
its defences. Hitler forced him into agreeing
to a German takeover of the Czech lands.
WOLFSON.OX.AC.UK
This agreement was signed at four o’clock in
the morning of 15 March, and by six o’clock
German troops began pouring over the
border and took possession of the country
while the Czech military was commanded to
step down and allow them to enter.
Hans and Willy were on the train that
left Prague station at about seven o’clock,
so they would have seen the advancing
German army out of the train’s windows
as it travelled towards the border with
Germany. They reached the border much
more quickly than a traveller would today,
because the border had moved, with the
annexation of the Sudetenland. The stamp
in Hans’ passport shows that the bordercrossing
certificate was issued in Lobositz,
a small town on the left bank of the River
Elbe, now known by its Czech name of
Lovosice, some forty miles north-west of
Prague, and these days at least another forty
miles away from the border.
On 16 March, they reached the Dutch
border at Oldenzaal. On the German side
of the border, they were asked by German
officials whether they were Jews. They
could honestly answer ‘No’ despite their
father, because by Jewish halacha Jewishness
can only be transmitted matrilineally. They
caught the night ferry from Hook of Holland
and landed in Harwich early the following
morning. Barclay Baron wrote: ‘They landed
in England on 17th March 1939 with no
visible means of support whatever. I met
them on arrival, arranged hospitality and
provided them from my personal funds with
immediate necessities. I had already signed a
guarantee to the Home Office that I would
be responsible for their support so that no
charges, in the event of their sickness or
unemployment, would fall on British public
funds.’
Barclay Baron was comfortably off and
well-connected, but by no means rich. He
arranged for Hans to be given hospitality
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