PŘEMYSL PITTER
 
In August 1944, the Committee of Christian Aid for Jewish Children was established in Prague. Its aim was to look after the children who would return after the war. Humanist Přemysl Pitter and his assistant Olga Fierzová played a big role in the Committee. In May 1945, Pitter gained permission from the Czech National Council to use four chateaux, which were confiscated from German owners: Štiřín, Olešovice, Kamenice a Lojovice. In the chateaux caretakers looked after the Jewish children who were recovering from physical and psychological long-time privations. On May 22, Přemysl Pitter brought 40 Jewish children, ages 2 – 16 years, to these chateaux. Later, German children whose families were intended to be transferred or who lost their parents and relatives in the maelstrom of war were brought to these chateaux. These were the Jewish and German children who became the first swallows of the conciliation.
 
In the course of two years, about 810 children went through the chateaux. Some of them returned home, for the others foster parents were successfully found.
 
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