“Hundreds of Czech elementary and secondary schools were closed in 1939, and so rapid was the systematic closing of Czech schools during the first year of the war that, by the end of 1940, 6,000 of the 20,000 Czech teachers were unemployed.
“By September 1942 some 60 percent of the Czech elementary schools had been closed by the Germans.
“All Czech books published during the republican regime have been confiscated, and the glorification of Greater Germany and its Führer became the basis of all teaching at Czech elementary schools. In 1939 the number of pupils permitted to enter Czech secondary schools had diminished by 50 percent as compared with 1938. About 70 percent of the Czech secondary schools had been closed by the end of 1942. Girls have been entirely excluded from the secondary schools.
“Nursery schools for children between 3 and 6 were completely germanized and employed only German teachers.
“Other crimes in cultural spheres.
“Monuments:
“In many towns the ‘Masaryk Houses,’ which for the most part contain libraries, halls for the showing of educational films, and for the performance of plays and concerts, have been confiscated and transformed into barracks or offices for the Gestapo. The statues they contained, sometimes of great artistic value, were spoiled and broken. . . . A number of monuments in Prague, among them Bilek’s ‘Moses’ and Mardjatka’s ‘Memorial to the Fallen Legionaries,’ have been melted down. . . .
“A decree of the autumn of 1942 ordered all university libraries to hand over all early printed Czech works and first editions to the Germans. The collections in the National Museum were pillaged; and the Modern Art Gallery, containing a unique collection of Czech art of the 19th and 20th centuries with some precious specimens of foreign (mainly French) art, was closed.
“The crown jewels of the ancient Czech kings had to be handed over to Heydrich.
“Literature: