SLOVAKIA 2002-3

 

Rehabilitation of the wartime Tiso regime continued to be the main theme of the struggle in 2002/3 between neo-fascist, antisemitic and populist elements, and liberal forces. Antisemitism was expressed in several incidents of cemetery desecration in 2002 and 2003. Government gestures to the Jewish community and its promises to fight antisemitism and Holocaust revisionism may be seen in the context of Slovakia’s anticipated entry into the EU in May 2004.

 

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 promoting activities for Jewish youth.

 The Museum of Jewish Culture has built up an impressive collection displaying the rich Jewish heritage of the country. It organizes cultural and educational activities, as well as seminars for teachers, and prepares documentary films featuring Holocaust survivors. It also publishes a variety of publications and books related to Jewish topics.

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. In September 2002 the government agreed to pay a small amount of compensation to Jews who “were illegally deprived of their property during World War II.” The daily, Novy Den of 19 September 2002 described it as “an attempt to right a wrong.” The positive attitude of the Slovak government was no doubt linked to Slovakia’s efforts to smooth its entry into the EU.

The issue of compensation to Jews continued to raise comparisons with citizens who lost their lives fighting against communism. Thus the fortnightly Kultura called in September 2002 for compensation to those who fought on the Eastern Front (along with Nazi forces). Zmena (651/2002) commented bluntly: “850 million for the victims of the Holocaust! When will Slav victims get compensation?”

 

POLITICAL organizations and antisemitic activity

Slovakia’s entry into the EU in May 2004 and the invitation to join NATO issued at the November 2002 Prague summit have dramatically changed the internal and external status of the country, which in several years has advanced rapidly from what was considered a “second rate” state of the former communist bloc to the “elitist” club of the first eight former communist states to join the EU.

Slovakia’s new standing has hardened the position of extremist parties toward the Union as well as toward other European structures of integration. The small extreme left and the more vocal extreme right, as well as some populist groups, have warned against the “march of globalization.”

Ethnic and racial issues headed the public agenda as the country prepared to join the EU. The Roma became a major topic after social benefit cuts in early 2004 provoked violent clashes between the authorities and Roma, especially in eastern Slovakia. The country’s human rights record was under the close scrutiny of both European monitoring bodies and the US State Department’s Annual Report on Human Rights.

Extreme nationalist parties and movements often blend xenophobic and antisemitic attitudes with less strident positions on these issues. The Slovak National Party (SNS), for example, which was a partner in the Meciar-led coalition government until it lost the 1998 general elections, is clearly such a 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, which was led by Ján Slota, 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 June 2003 the two parties amalgamated in an effort to present a united front of Slovak extremism (see Slovak Spectator, 9 June 2003).

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.

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. There were several incidents of Jewish cemetery desecration in 2003. Thirty-two graves were vandalized and the entrance to the Jewish cemetery in Banovce nad Bebravou (birthplace of Jozef Tiso) was painted with swastikas on 21 January and 22 tombstones were overturned in Puchov in October. Vandals in eastern Slovakia also painted swastikas and antisemitic slogans on tombstones in cemeteries in Nove Mesto and Vahom in October and in the city of Hummene in November (see Jerusalem Post, 20 Nov. 2003, and AFP 27 Oct. 2003).

A short-lived political storm broke out in late 2003 after the Jewish community appealed to Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda to “take a clear stand” on allegations that the Slovak Intelligence Service (SIS) made antisemitic references. The daily SME reported that the opening sentence in one secret SIS report specifically stated that the head of the Israeli Chamber of Commerce, Milos Ziak, and his wife were “Jews” (based on a report in Slovak Spectator, 10 Nov. 2003).

 

ATTITUDES TOWARD THE HOLOCAUST AND THE NAZI ERA

Rehabilitation of the wartime Tiso regime continued to be the main theme of the struggle in 2002/3, 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.

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). In 2002 they marked the 63rd anniversary of the wartime state with a meeting at Tiso’s grave in the Martin cemetery in Bratislava, and with an authorized demonstration attended by neo-fascists and skinheads (Pravda, 15 March 2002). Several Slovak papers, such as the daily SME, printed articles recalling the commencement of the first deportations in 1942. One SME commentary reminded readers that the “Jews had paid in advance for their own death” when sixty years previously the first trains left Poprad bound for Auschwitz. In a supplement to the weekly Slovo, commentator and philosopher Peter Gregus, writing on the “Slovak Holocaust,” stressed that only fascist Croatia and Slovakia had failed to place any obstacles on Hitler’s road to the Final Solution (Slovo 13/ 2002).

The attempts to rewrite history and rehabilitate the wartime ideological line continued in a variety of forums, such as “scientific” meetings and numerous publications. A typical example was the claim that Tiso’s regime was not to blame for the Holocaust in Slovakia. Thus, based on the memoirs of Hans Keller, Switzerland’s ambassador to wartime Slovakia, the nationalist weekly Kultura (13/2002) wrote that “Tiso opposed Hitler.” Historian Robert Letz claimed that Tiso “neither initiated nor supported the deportations.”

A seminar entitled simply ‘Dr. Jozef Tiso” was held in April 2002 to commemorate the 55th anniversary of Tiso’s execution. The eighteen papers delivered attempted to rehabilitate Tiso’s legacy, often by obscuring his role in the Holocaust of Slovak Jewry. Tiso was mentioned as “having economic objections to the Jews.” ‘The Jewish Code’ (the antisemitic legislation) was presented as having been imposed by Hitler.

Several other publications, some claiming to be of a ‘scientific’ nature, continued to spread the myth of Tiso’s innocence regarding the fate of the Jews and regarding his ‘patriotism’, which apparently vindicated him automatically from the crimes he was alleged to have committed. A book published by Milan Klen, The Controversies surrounding Jozef Tiso: Seeking the Truth,” for example, claims that the communists were the ones interested in distorting Tiso’s “true” role. (The work was reviewed in Kultura, 21/2002). In 2002 a first volume of Tiso’s speeches and articles for the period 1913–38 was published. The editors, Miroslav Fabricius and Ladislav Susko, were careful to present the published material in a way which concealed fascist influence on his thought. They disregarded the fate of the Jews during the Holocaust in their long introductory survey, and claimed that Tiso’s execution was too high a price to pay for his concessions to the ‘radicals’ (hinting that the latter were both locals and Nazis) in solving the Jewish question.

 

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 were especially involved in the campaign against rehabilitating the Tiso era. Government promises and actions (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.

In September 2002 President Schuster laid wreaths at the Holocaust memorial in Bratislava. That same month the president was presented a copy of the book Antisemitism 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 ASW 2001/2). Excellent relations between Israel and Slovakia contribute to working out joint plans for programs in both countries to help educators from Slovakia teach the subject of the Holocaust.

The Slovak Spectator, in its issue of 11 October 2003, published an article entitled “Antisemitism in an Enlarged EU,” which analyzed antisemitic views in the EU. Referring to the EU survey (see General Analysis 2003), it noted that “the Slovak media pays little or no attention to these worrying developments [pan-European prejudice against Israel and Jews] in the EU, which must resemble some of the country’s own current problems,” because, inter alia, “the country has its own problems to deal with in this field.” The paper quoted a Slovak survey from January 2001 which indicated antisemitic sentiments, not unlike those found in the EU survey. It concluded on a sarcastic note: “It seems this is one of the many problems EU entry will not help Slovakia solve.”