SLOVAKIA 2001-2

 

Rehabilitation of the wartime Tiso regime continued to be the main theme of the struggle, in 2001/2, between neo-fascist elements and liberal forces in Slovakia. A number of volumes whitewashing the fascist wartime state were published in 2001. Several Jewish cemeteries were desecrated in 2001/2.

 

 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 have been 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. It also publishes books related to Jewish topics.

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. In 2002 the Central Union of Jewish Religious Communities in the Slovak republic reached an agreement with the Slovak government on the formation of a commission which would examine the issue of compensation for Holocaust victims.

 

 POLITICAL organizations and antisemitic activity

The September 2002 elections were a severe test for the troubled coalition government of pro-European parties, led by Mikulos Dzurinda, which had survived numerous internal conflicts and parliamentary no-confidence motions. Slovakia’s attempts to join NATO and the European Union (EU) have continued to serve as a prime strategic objective, influencing the country’s policy on minority issues (Hungarians, who are strongly represented in the parliament, including in the coalition government, and Roma) and issues related to the country’s legacy from the Holocaust.

Extreme 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. In late 1991 the SNS split into two parts: one led by Slota’s former deputy, Anna Malikova, retained the original name, and the other led by Slota, formed the Real Slovak National Party. Neither party gained parliamentary representation in the 2002 September elections. In early 2003 the two parties reunited in an effort to unite the divided front of Slovak extremism.

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.

There were several incidents of Jewish cemetery desecration in 2001/2. Some 50 tombstones were damaged in Levice, southern Slovakia, and seven were destroyed in Vranov nad Toplou, eastern Slovakia. The Levice cemetery has been vandalized six times in recent years while the Vranov nad Toplou cemetery was the target of an attack in 1999 (Novy Cas, 26 May 2001; Novy Den, 5 June 2001). Eleven tombstones were also vandalized in the old Jewish cemetery of Zvolen at the end of June (International Herald Tribune, 7 July 2001).One hundred and thirty-five graves in the Jewish cemetery at Kosice were found desecrated on 21 April 2002 (New York Times, 22 April 2002). The date of this attack may not have been not coincidental since 20 April, Hitler’s birthday, is traditionally celebrated by neo-Nazis throughout the world.

 

 ATTITUDES TOWARD THE HOLOCAUST AND THE NAZI ERA

Rehabilitation of the wartime Tiso regime continued to be the main theme of the struggle in 2001/2, between neo-fascist, antisemitic and populist elements, and liberal forces. The views of the former are expressed forcefully in public discourse and in various publications. As in 2000, pro-Tiso supporters carried out provocative acts which were widely reported in the media and placed the issue of rehabilitation on the electoral agenda.

Right-wing extremists maintained their 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). They marked the 62nd 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.

The attempts to rewrite history and rehabilitate the wartime ideological line continued in a variety of forums, such as “scientific” meetings and numerous publications. In 2001 the proceedings of a seminar held in 1998 honoring Karol Sidor were published. Sidor was the founder of the notorious fascist Hlinka Guard, which played a major role in anti-Jewish activities in Slovakia before 1939, and was nominated “supreme leader of the Hlinka Guard for life.” In 1937 he advocated the deportation of Slovak Jews to Palestine or Birobidzan (Slovak, 12 March 1937). Likewise the proceedings of a seminar dedicated to Arved Grebert, another “hero” of the Tiso era were published. Grebert was in the diplomatic service of the Tiso state, and during his years of exile throughout the communist era he was refused employment by Radio Free Europe and by the BBC because of his clerical-fascist views. Since 1989 he has published frequently on the merits of the Tiso state.

In 2001 another active revisionist, Milan S. Durica (see ASW 1999/2000, 2000/1), edited and published a volume, The Catholic Church in Slovakia 1938–1945 as Viewed by German Diplomats and Secret Agents. The book alleges not only that Tiso’s regime and the Church had nothing to do with fascism and the Holocaust, but that it in fact saved the majority of Jews. Liberals and Jewish historians in the country perceived the book as provocative and as negating the values on which present day Slovakia is based. Defense of clerical fascism and negation of the Holocaust render Durica a leading figure in attempts at whitewashing historical truth. As an ecclesiastical historian his writings are influential in Catholic circles. In 2001 the House of Slovaks Abroad awarded him a medal for his services to Canada, where he spent years in exile. It should be noted that several extreme right-wing Slovak revisionist historians who have gained prominence in the country were living in exile during the communist era.

The Slovak Catholic Church has demonstrated in various ways that it seeks 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” (see ASW 2000/1). Kultura has published numerous articles attempting to whitewash the Tiso legacy. In 2000/1 it conducted a campaign to defend the deputy chairman of the wartime state, Jan Vojtassak, one of three bishops tried by the communist regime (see also below). The paper disregarded all evidence of the bishop’s hatred of Jews and his role as a senior official of the Tiso regime during the Holocaust. Five Israeli historians of Slovak origin protested against the process of Vojtassek’s beatification. Kultura (no.1/2001) published a response to the Israeli historians by priests of the Spis diocese, claiming that Vojtassek “bears no moral blame for the deportations of the Jews.”

This position of the Church was again highlighted by the publication of a book of recollections by the nonagenarian Catholic priest Viktor Trstensky, who was persecuted in the communist period and rehabilitated in 1990. In his book, Further Painful Outpourings of the Soul Longing for Truth and Justice, the author reflects the spirit of Tiso and the Slovak fascist state. The book includes antisemitic passages, among others, accusing the Jews of “killing Christ.” Another publication, They Were Three – The Political Trials of the Catholic Bishops Fifty Years On, based on a conference in Bratislava in January 2001, concerns the trials of Catholic bishops during the communist period, highlighting the allegiance of two of the bishops to the Tiso regime. Both books completely ignore the bishops’ antisemitic views and their active participation in the Tiso regime.

Another attempt to whitewash the Tiso regime was the publication of Svatoslav Mathe’s study Slovak Politics 1848–1993, by the nationalist organization Matica Slovenska, which while seemingly sympathizing with the plight of the Jews, refers frequently to their conduct in Slovakia. The book completely clears Slovak fascists of all blame for the Holocaust.

As in Hungary and Romania, the ongoing debates in the Slovak media reveal sophisticated manipulation of historical memory, whitewashing the past and rewriting history. One rarely sees a clear statement to the effect that the “Jews are the enemies of the Slovak nation”; rather they insinuate this by portraying the Tiso regime as “anti-German,” and Tiso himself as a “democrat” and a “patriot,” and by hinting at the Jewish campaign against his legacy.

 

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 have been especially involved in the campaign to rehabilitate the Tiso era. Government promises and action (such as President Rudolf Schuster’s declaration of 9 September as a memorial day for victims of the Holocaust and of racial violence – see ASW 2000/1) to support these endeavors have done little to weaken the trend of historical revisionism. Commenting on this and on the rise of neo-fascism, the liberal Narodna Obrada (26 Sept. 2001) wrote that “a neo-Nazi Slovakia” was being propagated by senior officials and that “among neo-Nazis we find actors, Mafiosi and entrepreneurs, but also children of celebrities.”

Both in September 2001 and 2002 President Schuster laid wreaths at the Holocaust memorial in Bratislava; both ceremonies were well covered by the media. In September 2002 the president was presented a copy of the book Anti-Semitism at the End of the 20th Century, published by the Museum of Jewish Culture and based on an academic conference held in Nitra in 2001 (see Book Reviews). The director of the Museum of Jewish Culture, Prof. Pavol Mestan, who organized the Nitra conference, also announced that a permanent Slovak exhibition commemorating the fate of Slovak Jews would be opened in Auschwitz.

Holocaust Memorial Day opened in September 2001with an exhibition “Israel and Ourselves” at the Slovak National Uprising Memorial in Banska Bystrica. In Kremnicka victims of the Holocaust were commemorated in 2001 in the presence of an Israeli delegation led by MK Yosi Katz. Press coverage was meager, and only the daily Sme mentioned a mass grave of 747 victims, 400 of whom were Jews, under the title “The Holocaust Is Also Unfulfilled Promises Which Hurt.” The weekly Slovo devoted a supplement pertaining to the anniversary of the wartime state, focusing on the adoption of the Jewish Code.

In March 2001 hundreds took part in the March of Tolerance in Bratislava bearing slogans against fascism, racism and antisemitism (Novy Cas, 15 March 2001, Narodna Obrada, 15 March 2001).

The invitation to Slovakia to join the EU by May 2004 and the invitation to join NATO issued at the Prague summit in November 2002 will place Slovakia in a better position to combat antisemitism and racism in general.