By Virginia Stratford
A church history professor discussed the implications of political and historical movements on Latter-day Saint missionaries in Czechoslovakia at the Harold B. Lee Library Auditorium Thursday, Nov. 30, 2006.
“This was only time in the history of the church when missionaries had to be evacuated from the worldwide missions,” said David Boone professor of church history and doctrine at BYU. “The entire group was evacuated from Europe in three months at a time when tens of thousands of Americans were besieging the ticket office of the great steamship companies for passage.”
His lecture, “LDS Church Crisis in Czechoslovakia in 1938-39,” addressed the evacuation of LDS missionaries before World War II as the Germans invaded the country.
An LDS mission district was formally established in Czechoslovakia on July 24, 1929, and 48 missionaries served during 1929-1939. Most missionaries served for 30-36 months because of language difficulty.
In September 1938, missionaries left the country in the “Fire Drill Evacuation” because of political unrest in the region. The missionaries sought refuge in Switzerland for several months and then returned to Czechoslovakia. The following summer, when Germany took over the country, missionaries were still allowed to proselyte, but were under strict curfew and public meeting rules.
“Even the strongest members felt the pressure of the occupation and wondered what the new regime meant to the church in Czechoslovakia,” he said. “The Saints, and especially the missionaries, were never quite certain when they might be breaking the law.”
People became extremely careful about who they talked to because they never knew who would turn them in to the Nazi police, Boone said. However this caution did not help two LDS missionaries in service of an elderly woman.
Two American missionaries were planning to exchange an American check for Czech currency when the Gestapo captured them. They were arrested and taken to prison for 44 days. Police officers searched their apartment for evidence against them, confiscating several un-cashed checks, a possession not allowed then under currency laws. These items, and a book of Czech poetry with supposed Communist overtones, were used to hold the missionaries for conspiracy and propaganda.
Boone shared experiences from one missionary who was searched by the Gestapo.
“The Germans searched us, taking our personal passports and wallets and began interrogating us,” he read from a missionary journal. “The room was torn apart-suitcases and clothing strewn about; they had gone through everything.”
Missionaries were ordered to evacuate Czechoslovakia using church-supplied funds in the summer of 1939.
Boone was a guest speaker for the House of Learning lecture series hosted by the Harold B. Lee Library.
