Rehabilitation of the wartime Tiso regime continued to be the main theme of the struggle, in 2000, between neo-fascist and antisemitic elements, and liberal and democratic forces in Slovakia. A cemetery desecration in the port city of Dunajska was the most serious violent antisemitic act reported.
THE JEWISH COMMUNITY
Slovakia has some 3,000 Jews out of a total population of 5.35 million. The largest Jewish community is in the capital Bratislava; smaller communities exist in Kosice, Presov, Komarno and Dunajska Sreda.
The Central Union of Jewish Religious Communities in the Slovak Republic is the main communal organization. In general, the Jewish community is an aging one; however, there are signs of a revival of interest in Jewish roots among many of the younger generation. In recent years local branches of B’nai B’rith and Maccabi have been established, and the Lauder Foundation and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee are active in promoting activities for Jewish youth.
The Institute of Jewish Studies, established in 1996 at Comenius University in Bratislava, conducts a wide range of courses and other activities related to the Jewish legacy in Slovakia. The Museum of Jewish Culture has built up an impressive collection displaying the rich Jewish heritage of the country and organizes cultural and educational activities, as well as seminars for teachers, and prepares documentary films featuring Holocaust survivors. In May 2000 it organized an international conference on antisemitism at the end of the twentieth century (see below).
In April 2000, a joint commission was established by the government with the Jewish community to pursue the restitution of Jewish property sequestered during the Holocaust.
POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS AND ANTISEMITIC ACTIVITY
Nationalist parties and movements often blend xenophobic and antisemitic attitudes with more moderate positions on these issues. The Slovak National Party (SNS), for example, a partner in the Meciar-led coalition government until it lost the 1998 general elections, is clearly an extremist nationalist party. SNS has been behind the continuing campaign to rehabilitate Jozef Tiso, head of the wartime fascist regime, which was responsible for the deportation of the country’s Jews to the death camps. Despite the loss of its power base, the party continued its efforts to rehabilitate Tiso’s regime under Jan Slota, the controversial former leader of the SNS, who resigned his party position and became mayor of the town of Zilina.
Other extremist nationalist organizations include the fringe Slovak People’s Party (SLS) , which continued to spread xenophobic hate messages, and the Slovenska Pospolitost (Slovak Community), formed in 1996 by skinheads and other right-wing extremists. Together with several other organizations, Slovenska Pospolitost publishes bulletins of its activities on the website of the International Third Position, based in the UK.
The desecration of the cemetery in the southern Slovak port city of Dunajska in June was the main antisemitic event recorded in 2000. Five tombstones were overturned. The perpetrators were not caught.
ATTITUDES TOWARD THE HOLOCAUST AND THE NAZI ERA
Rehabilitation of the wartime Tiso regime continued to be the main theme of the struggle in 2000 between neo-fascist and antisemitic elements, and liberal and democratic forces in Slovakia. The former maintained the high level of activity begun in 1999, largely in connection with the 60th anniversary of the founding of the wartime Slovak fascist state (14 March 1939). Slovak extremists marked the 61st anniversary of the wartime state with a meeting at Tiso’s grave at the Martin cemetery in Bratislava and an authorized demonstration attended by neo-fascists and skinheads in front of the presidential offices in Bratislava.
Another indication of the continuing attempts to rehabilitate Tiso was the decision of the Zilina town council in March 2000 to erect a plaque honoring Tiso on the spot where he proclaimed, in October 1938, the “autonomy of the Slovak state,” which was the first step that led to the formation of the pro-Nazi puppet state. Following numerous protests by groups within and outside Slovakia, including the staff of the Slovak Museum of Jewish Culture and Israeli historians, the town council rescinded its plan. The Slovak leadership had obviously been embarrassed by the original decision to erect the plaque, partly because it coincided with a meeting of European rabbis held in Bratislava, and Slovak Foreign Minister Eduard Kukan spoke of “disturbing reactions abroad.”
On the other hand, nationalist publications such as Zmena (no. 524/2000) asserted that “Freemasons, communists and democrats are not content with the fact that Tiso has been hanged once already,” while Slovenska Republika (10 March 2000) claimed that “political terrorism has forced the council [in Zilina] to change its decision.”
The Zilina affair placed the Slovak Catholic Church in a delicate position. The Slovak Bishops’ Conference of 1998, while in fact siding with much of Tiso’s legacy, also tried to be perceived as sympathetic to the Jewish tragedy. A spokesman of the Church leadership stated that the conference had adopted a document on the Church’s attitude toward the Holocaust, yet “neither historians nor politicians have sufficiently clarified Tiso the man.” Evidently, the Church is seeking to preserve Tiso in a light similar to that reflected in the nationalist journal Kultura – “remaining in the people’s memories as a luminous exception amidst Stalinism and Hitlerite Nazism.” It should be noted that since 1998 Kultura has published numerous articles attempting to whitewash the Tiso legacy.
In early 2000 the Slovak media reported widely on the proceedings that culminated in the marking of the anniversary of the wartime Slovak state. Events such as the January 2000 Stockholm Forum on the Holocaust and the visit by Slovak President Rudolf Schuster to Israel were linked to the public debate over the plaque honoring Tiso. The nationalist Zmena described the demonstration of skinheads and neo-fascists at the presidential palace and at Tiso’s grave in sympathetic terms, emphasizing the “young age” of the participants.
Various groups identified with fostering Tiso’s legacy were present at these commemorative events, such as the Andrej Hlinka Society, the Jozef Tiso Society and the League of Anti-Communist Resistance. According to the liberal SME of 20/21 March 2000, the participants of the European Conference of Rabbis had to enter the presidential palace by a side-door due to a noisy neo-fascist demonstration; this, after the meeting had been transferred from Vienna in protest against J
information on the innocence of Tiso, who in fact hated Hitler and was in turn hated by Hitler. For example, in an article in Extra (11/2000), he wrote of the great progress toward democracy made in wartime Slovakia and dismissed Tiso’s culpabthe tragedy of Slovak Jewry. Durica continued to publish and re-publish previous studies which attempted to prove Tiso’s innocence, such as a new edition of his book Dr. Jozef Tiso as Evaluated by Hitler’s Diplomats and Secret Agents, initially issued in 1992. German assessments that Tiso was “anti-German” were quoted in order to demonstrate that there was little trust between the security forces of the Reich and of their Slovak allies. Yet, Durica, like other Tiso defenders, fails to account for Tiso’s role in the fate of the Jews – as has been demonstrated in several authoritative studies - and for the fact that Hitler kept the Slovak leadership in power.
Several other volumes defending the Tiso legacy were published in 2000. Vladimir Repka’s Conversations from Afar includes interviews, conducted after the fall of communism, with some twenty exiles who served the Slovak state and left for the West in 1945 or in 1968. The National Yearbook 2001, published by Matica Slovenska (see above), mentions several clerics and populists recalled on various anniversaries as pre-war and wartime “nation builders,” as leading Slovaks who “must be remembered.” These include Andrej Hlinka, Vojtech Tuka and Jozef Tiso. Some of the studies in Testimonies of the Truth about Slovakia, edited by Frantisek Vnuk, reiterate the claim that in fact Tiso “saved” Jews from the Germans. The previous two volumes were criticized by the historian and director of the Jewish Museum in Bratislava Pavol Mestan in Antisemitism in Slovak Politics (1989–1999), also published in 2000, in Slovak and English (see ASW 1999/2000).
As in Hungary and Romania, the on-going debates in the Slovak media reveal that the revisionist line is often a sophisticated one, presented through careful manipulation of historical memory, whitewashing the past and rewriting history. One rarely sees a clear statement to the effect that the “Jews were the enemies of the Slovak nation,” even though such views do appear; it is enough to distort the facts about the Tiso regime, to portray him as “anti-German,” a “democrat” and a “patriot,” and then to hint at the Jewish campaign against his legacy in order to convey such opinions.
In late 2000 Mein Kampf was published in two volumes with a 30-page commentary. The right to re-issue the book, which never appeared in Slovak during the Tiso regime, was defended by the publisher Agnesa Burdova, who claimed it was an attempt to teach the people the meaning of dictatorship and intolerance. However, in summer 2001 the justice authorities were still examining the legality of publishing it.
RESPONSES TO ANTISEMITISM
Members of the Jewish community, as well as liberal and democratic forces, continued to play an active role in combating antisemitism, and especially the campaign to rehabilitate the Tiso era. Nevertheless, despite government promises and activities to support these endeavors, historical revisionism appeared to be continuing.
President Rudolf Schuster’s visit to Israel in February 2000, including Yad Vashem, was an important landmark in Slovak-Israeli/Jewish relations. Characteristic of the extremist reaction in Slovakia was Zmena’s (521/2000) accusation that Schuster was a Slovakian representative of “an Israel that occupies and bombards.” Schuster strongly opposed the decision of the Zilina city council to erect the plaque honoring Tiso. He initiated legal steps to have 9 September – the date when the antisemitic “Jewish laws” were passed by the Slovak state in 1941 – declared as a memorial day to victims of the Holocaust and racist violence. The bill was enacted on 30 October 2000 by a majority of 85 out of the 87 deputies present.
