‘MY FAMILY FLED THE SUDETENLAND WHEN GERMANY INVADED’
On 1 October 1938, Germany’s annexation of the Sudetenland began and Nazi forces started to parade in. Hitler’s propaganda machine justified the move by stating that the three million Sudeten Germans living in this border area of Czechoslovakia had been persecuted by the Czechs. In reality, he wanted to assimilate Sudeten Germans into the ‘Fatherland’, and to seize control of the area’s industry.
Crowds of people cheered Hitler as he drove through the town of Graslitz on 4 October. Was local factory worker Johann Wahlich observing the Fuhrer’s parade that day?
NAZI THREAT
Even though he was a Sudeten German, Johann would not have joined in the celebrations. In fact, he already knew at that point that his family faced huge danger.
“My father Johann Wahlich was born in Graslitz in 1920,” John Wahlich explains. “The town is now called Kraslice, and is in the Czech Republic.
