British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia

The British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia (later the Czechoslovak Refugee Trust) was a voluntary organisation established in late October 1938, in the lead up to the Second World War, in response to the increase in demands for refuge abroad. Its purpose was to make arrangements and allocate funds for refugees in Czechoslovakia to travel to Britain. It was primarily for the rescue of political refugees, particularly Communists and Social Democrats, as well as Jews and their families, many of whom had fled Nazi Germany or the regions it had annexed during 1938 (Austria, in March, and the Sudetenland, in October). The committee was largely funded by public donations and appeals following the Munich Agreement and ensuing occupation of the Sudetenland.