Explore the roots of antisemitism and antigypsyism in Central Europe.
This interactive timeline is divided into four historical periods and allows you to move through time by scrolling or by jumping to a specific period, filter events by country, and view short descriptions by hovering over each event, with selected entries offering more detailed historical context.
EXPLORE THE PAST
2004 – 2024
The European Union
Across 2004–2024, antisemitism and antigypsyism in Central Europe persisted and adapted despite EU accession, shifting from overt violence toward politicised discourse, institutional discrimination, and digitally mediated hate. While legal frameworks and inclusion strategies expanded, weak enforcement enabled far-right actors, populist narratives, and online networks to normalise conspiracy theories, historical revisionism, and collective blame. Jewish and Roma communities continued to face symbolic attacks on memory sites, segregation in housing and education, police abuse, and renewed scapegoating during crises such as migration, COVID-19, and geopolitical conflict—revealing a persistent gap between formal commitments to equality and lived experience.
2024
2022
2021
Online threats against Jewish figures by the National Resistance Council (NOR)
Young Neo-Nazis plan to attack the Israeli Embassy in Prague
2018
2017
Calls to send Jews, Roma, and homosexuals to the gas chambers in the parliamentary restaurant by a far-right politician
Gross anti-Semitic insults and calls to expel Jews in connection with debates on the renovation of the Jewish cemetery in Prostějov
False announcement that Jews were killed, coupled with threats of further violence
The joy of killing Jews was expressed by jihadist foreign fighter Omar Shehadeh, originally from the Czech Republic
2009
2008
An organization called the National Guard in the Highlands identified and intimidated people of alleged Jewish origin in the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands
2007
Attempted neo-Nazi march through Prague’s Jewish Quarter
Antisemitic threat emailed to Jewish Community of Prague
Calls for attacks against Jews influencing politics on the discussion forum of the neo-Nazi organization White Justice
2006
1991 – 2004
The Time of Democratization
The collapse of state socialism brought democratic freedoms but also enabled the re-emergence of antisemitism and antigypsyism across Central Europe. As economies and national identities were rebuilt, far-right subcultures, nationalist rhetoric, and historical revisionism gained ground, leading to street violence, symbolic attacks, and hostile public discourse. Jewish communities faced vandalism and Holocaust denial, while Roma communities experienced severe violence, segregation, and police abuse amid economic upheaval. Although minority-rights frameworks expanded, inconsistent enforcement allowed racialised exclusion to persist, revealing the fragility of new democracies in protecting vulnerable groups.
2003
2001
Call for training in the fight against the so-called Z.O.G. in the former Soviet Union republics
Czech-language Hezbollah propaganda website
1999
Establishment of the paramilitary organization Svatopluk’s Guards within the anti-Semitic association National Alliance
1998
Damage to tombstones at the Jewish cemetery and the memorial to Jewish victims of the concentration camp in Trutnov
A Neo-Nazi knife attack on a young man of Jewish origin
Anti-Semitic threats and insults to journalists in the courthouse
1997
1995
Molotov cocktail attack on Prague synagogue
Hateful threats to a member of the Prague Jewish community signed by “Eichmann”
1994
1993
Zine Aryan Fight (Árijský boj): symbolic connection of neo-Nazi skinheads with anti-Semitism in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
1992
1945 – 1991
The Time of Authoritarianism
After 1945, antisemitism and antigypsyism in Central Europe did not disappear but were reshaped under communist rule through surveillance, repression, and ideological control. Jewish communities faced postwar hostility, obstructed restitution, and later state-led “anti-Zionism” that marginalised Jewish identity, censored Holocaust memory, and subjected communal life to monitoring and purges. Roma communities experienced systematic discrimination through forced settlement, cultural erasure, segregated education, and racialised policing, justified as socialist “assimilation.” While regimes proclaimed equality and antifascism, both forms of racism were embedded in state institutions and everyday governance, leaving Jewish and Roma communities silenced, controlled, and vulnerable on the eve of democratic transition.
1991
Magazine Týdeník politika (Weekly Politics) lays the ground for hatred against Jews
1983
1981
Anti-Semitic elements in cooperation between State Security and the Palestine Liberation Organization
1971
1967
1960
1952
Anti-Semitic elements in the trial of the so-called anti-state conspiracy center headed by Rudolf Stránský
Dissolution of Zionist organisations and repression
1947
1939 – 1945
Times of War and Genocide
Between 1939 and 1945, antisemitism and antigypsyism across Central Europe were transformed into state-organised systems of persecution and genocide under Nazi occupation and collaborationist regimes. Jews were systematically stripped of rights, property, and livelihoods before being ghettoised, deported, and murdered in extermination camps, while Roma and Sinti were subjected to forced settlement, labour, internment, mass executions, and deportation as part of the Porajmos. These crimes were enabled not only by Nazi policy but also by local administrations, police forces, and societal participation, embedding racial violence into everyday governance. By the war’s end, Jewish life had been almost entirely destroyed and Roma communities devastated, leaving legacies of loss and trauma that would shape post-war marginalisation and memory across the region.
1945
Post-war property decree and discriminatory implementation
Liberation of the Theresienstadt ghetto
Evacuation transports to Theresienstadt
“White Buses” rescue Scandinavian Jews
1944
Transports of Slovak Jews to Theresienstadt
“Liquidation transports” from Theresienstadt
Final liquidation of the Theresienstadt Family Camp
Liquidation of the Theresienstadt Family Camp
1943
Transports to the Auschwitz-Birkenau “Family Camp”
Theresienstadt as propaganda ghetto
1942
First transport from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz-Birkenau
Overcrowding and mass death in Theresienstadt
The assassination of Reinhard Heydrich and the subsequent repression
Transports from Theresienstadt to the East
1941
Establishment of Theresienstadt ghetto and transit camp
First deportations from the Protectorate to ghettos
Reinhard Heydrich appointed Deputy Reich Protector
Mandatory wearing of the yellow star
1940
Gestapo prison established in Terezín
“J” marking in identity documents
1939
The Nisko Plan: the first deportation of Jews during the Holocaust
Registration of the Jewish population
Start of segregation of “Aryan” and Jewish populations
Establishment of the Central Office for Jewish Emigration
Regulation on the Aryanisation of Jewish Property
Appointment of Konstantin von Neurath as Reich Protector
Declaration of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
Occupation of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany
FROM MEMORY
TO MONITORING
You’ve explored the past – now see how history is connected to the present. View recent incidents of antisemitism and antigypsyism across Central Europe.