The attached report was submitted to the meeting to the executive of the World ORT Union in Zurich in November 1947. It shows the first stage of the organisation’s work in Czechoslovakia.

 The first ORT vocational school in Czechoslovakia opened in April 1947. The mission in the country was especially difficult- the company had no Jewish community to build on, the Jewish population was in the state of constant movement and in a great part could not afford to give up their employment to attend a vocational course.   

 Even though it was written only a few months after the beginning of ORT’s mission in Czechoslovakia, the report already speaks of the closure of the first courses owing to the emigration of students.

 A year after this report was completed, in October 1948 the vast majority of workshops were already closed and  a majority of students departed for Israel. The last ORT school was to close less than a year later in July 1949.