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Czechoslovak refugees

The Czechoslovak Refugee Trust was created in 1939 and was eventually wound up in 1975. Records of the Trust are in HO 294/44, and was subsequently ratified by the Czechoslovakia (Financial Assistance) Act 1939.

The Trust took over where the voluntary British Committee left off for want of funds, and when the Czechoslovak government Refugee Department was forced to discontinue operations. The assistance to be afforded to refugees took two forms: first, emigration to some overseas country of settlement, and secondly, maintenance and training in Britain pending re-emigration.

Permanent settlement of refugees was possible on only a very restricted scale during the war, but by the end of 1947 the resettlement of refugees from Nazism had been substantially achieved. In February 1948 a new category of refugees was created following the coup d´état establishing a Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, and the British government enlarged the categories of Trust beneficiaries to include refugees from that regime. The Trust was wound up in 1975 when the Charity Commissioners agreed that the administration of the Fund should pass to the Trustees of the British Council for Aid to Refugees.

HO 294/1-234 are files relating to policy and administration. Specimen personal files of refugee families in the various categories are in HO 294/235-486. Case papers of other refugee families, extracted from files that have not been preserved, are in HO 294/487-611. A numerical index to cases (HO 294/612-13) is open to readers, but the family files and case papers are closed for 50, or occasionally 75, years.

Related files may be found in FO 371, T 210 (Czechoslovak Financial Claims Office: Files), HO 213 and HO 352/139-40. Also, personal files for some of the staff have been selected in HO 382 (Aliens: Personal Files). These records reveal the political and personal conflicts within the organization and are currently being prepared for transfer. In view of the personal information they contain, it is likely that they will be subject to extended closure periods.