Slovakia's anti-Jewish regulations were inspired by the Nazi Nuremberg Laws. In 1941, the front page of the People's party newspaper called Slovák boasted that Slovakia, of all European countries, had the "strictest laws against Jews."
The Jewish Code defined who a Jew was and gave him a clear place in society. A Jew was defined on a racial, not a religious, basis, and thus one was born a Jew, not become one by choice. If a person had more than three Jewish grandparents, he or she was a Jew according to the Code.
Persons of Jewish descent were forbidden to study at universities and secondary schools, to practice a profession, they were not allowed to go to parks, swimming pools, cinemas, and their families had to move away from the main streets, as these were named after Adolf Hitler or Andrej Hlinka in the new state.
They were also forbidden to own many everyday items such as radios, cameras and fishing rods. All Jews from the age of 6 had to wear a badge - a six-pointed yellow star. Jews became second-class citizens by legal procedure, and anti-Semitism became an official part of state ideology and state policy.
The whole cultural (sic!) world, led by the great Germany, is radically addressing the Jewish question, and Slovakia must not be left behind. We have embarked on this path in full knowledge of what we are undertaking in this matter, we have embarked on it with the firm determination that we will not look at the attitude that various pseudo-humanists take towards our undertaking. Nor will we be misled by the incorrect and false argument that our action in this matter is unchristian.
I remember when we were expelled from school in September 1939, there was a big sign saying Jews forbidden to enter! And we were terribly sad because none of our friends came to say goodbye or to say they were sorry. And the teachers did the same. And it hurt me very much. I had a very good friend, Maruška, who suddenly told me that she couldn't see me anymore because her family would be at a disadvantage in getting rewards for anti-Semitism. And anti-Semitism among Slovaks was caused by the desire for possessions and profit, (...). In my opinion, it was more about trying to get rich from nothing than about any great racial prejudice.
They were smashing our windows and shouting in front of our house: Cut and hack so they bled, the Jewish head! They were our former friends who lived next door to us. Two young men who had become Guardsmen. (...) One of the two who called us dirty Jews under our windows, I had previously helped him to get together with a friend of mine, whom he liked very much.
... the clouds of war began to move in. There were 'Jews out!' signs around the city, Guards uniforms, windows being smashed. My parents, my mother was a seamstress, my father had a carpentry business. From night to day we had our workshop painted with stars, where it said, I remember, 'stinking Jew, den Juden raus!' and similar signs. So I didn't understand it so much at that time, but I learned from my parents' stories that I think that's what it meant. So there was less fun, less playing, we mostly stayed at home and there were Guardsmen marching through our street day and night shouting 'Czechs on foot to Prague!', I remember that too, 'Jews to Palestine!'. If only it had come true then, we wouldn't have ended up where we ended up.
...Well, the Slovak state had already begun by then and it was interesting how very united we lived in that Nová Baňa and one thought one had only friends and the next day the best friends suddenly became Guardsmen. And every day they were bothering us with something, when there weren't even those anti-Jewish laws. Then all these regulations started. One day they came for the fur coats, the next day they took the typewriters.
[...] so already in the fortieth year, those conditions were getting worse. They were worsening because the Guards also appeared in Mikuláš. Also in Mikuláš there were marches every evening with shouts, especially in front of Jewish houses: 'Slovakia to the Slovaks, Palestine to the Jews!' [...] One morning, on Saturday morning, when my father was still working, he heard someone banging on the metal shutter. So he went to open it to see who it was. So when he pulled up that blind, that's when he noticed that everything was written with anti-Semitic slogans, anti-Jewish slogans, and my father was a hard man. And when he saw the guy with the bucket, with the white paint, he grabbed the bucket and he hit the guy on the head. Then it had its sequel, that the next evening, it was a Sunday, they loaded the whole family into a truck, and it was such an event that we were taken to Košice.
Slogans such as "The Jews are the cause of your misery" or "Jewish property into Slovak hands" appeared more and more frequently in the streets of the towns. Anti-Jewish policy was suddenly the most frequent issue of internal politics. Synagogues and Jewish cemeteries were desecrated, and the Jewish population was violently attacked and publicly humiliated by members of the Hlinka Guard and the general population. As a result of the laws on aryanizations and the exclusion of Jews from social life adopted at the turn of 1941 and 1942, more than half of the Jewish population lost the possibility of earning a living, and this number continued to grow.
In 1941, work centres and work units were set up in Slovakia for able-bodied Jews who had been excluded from economic life and had lost their civil rights and property
However, the state, which had deprived such a large number of people of their property and livelihood, did not know what to do with them at that time. In 1941, work centres and work units were set up in Slovakia for able-bodied Jews who had been excluded from economic life and had lost their civil rights and property. Labour camps were built in Nováky, Sereď and Vyhne. These produced various handicraft products (clothing, carpentry, construction, etc.) and were also used to build nurseries, schools, and hospitals. Initially, the rule was that those in the labour camp were in relative safety from spontaneous attacks by the population, and later that they would not be deported.
The guards came to us, they wrote down what sweaters we had. We had to hand in our fur coats, we had to hand in our sweaters. That's what they came to collect by houses, by Jewish families. They came to collect sports equipment, we were not allowed to have skis or any other sports equipment, it just seemed that the situation in Slovakia and in Trenčín was unsustainable. So I decided, and I am surprised at myself today, that I would not stay here in Trenčín, and since many of my friends were already enrolled in the work camp in Nováky, I decided to go there to see them.
all chapters
Remembering the HolocaustHungary
Return and emigrationHungary
LMBTQHungary
History of the HolocaustHungary
Fascist ideologyHungary
The HolocaustHungary
The HolocaustSlovakia
Slovak StateSlovakia
IdeologySlovakia
PersecutionSlovakia
AntisemitismSlovakia
AryanisationSlovakia
PorajmosSlovakia
PorajmosHungary
LGBT minoritySlovakia
First transportSlovakia
DeportationsSlovakia
Life in the campSlovakia
Slovak National UprisingSlovakia
HomecomingSlovakia
EmigrationSlovakia
