1938 deportation of Jews from Slovakia

none From 4 to 7 November 1938, thousands of Jews were deported from Slovakia to the no-man's land on the Slovak−Hungarian border. Following Hungarian territorial gains in the First Vienna Award on 2 November, Slovak Jews were accused of favoring Hungary in the dispute. With the help of Adolf Eichmann, Slovak People's Party leaders planned the deportation, which was carried out by local police and the Hlinka Guard. Conflicting orders were issued to target either Jews who were poor or those who lacked Slovak citizenship, resulting in chaos. Many of the deportees managed to return home within a few days, but more than 800 were left in tent camps near Miloslavov, Veľký Kýr, and Šamorín in the no man's land along the border for months with some groups staying until January or February 1939. Another several hundred Jews were deported from Hungary to the no man's land. In the meantime they endured winter weather with little or no shelter, although they were helped by Jewish organizations in Bratislava. The deportations were a fiasco for the Slovak People's Party leadership, worsening the country's reputation abroad and causing capital flight by frightened Jews who intended to emigrate, but they were a preparation for the 1942 deportations to the ghettos and extermination camps in German-occupied Poland. 2 Background History of the Jews in Slovakia#The Holocaust The Holocaust in Slovakia#Background Following the Munich Agreement, in which the Czechoslovak Sudetenland was annexed by Nazi Germany, the Slovak People's Party (HSĽS)—long in favor of Slovak autonomy or independence—unilaterally announced Slovakia's autonomy within the Second Czechoslovak Republic.Rajcan Vadkerty Hlavinka 2018 842 HSĽS was an ethnonationalist partyPaulovičová 2018 5 which had a paramilitary wing, the Hlinka Guard. The pro-Nazi German Party, for Slovak Germans, also had a paramilitary wing, the Freiwillige Schutzstaffel. Jozef Tiso, a Catholic priest and HSĽS leader, became prime minister of the Slovak autonomous region and under Tiso's leadership, the Slovak government opened negotiations in Komárno with Hungary regarding their border.Rajcan Vadkerty Hlavinka 2018 842 The dispute was submitted to arbitration in Vienna by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Hungary was awarded land in southern Slovakia on 2 November 1938, including 40 percent of Slovakia's arable land and 270,000 people who had declared Czechoslovak ethnicity.Ward 2013 161, 163, 166Rajcan Vadkerty Hlavinka 2018 842–843 On 1 November, several Jews were arrested at a pro-Hungarian demonstration at the Carlton Hotel in Bratislava, agitating for the city to be annexed by Hungary.Rajcan 2018a 871Sokolovič 2013 113 This exacerbated the previous antisemitic sentiment of the HSĽS and provided a pretext for actions against Slovak Jews.Rajcan 2018a 871 Planning thumb|upright=1.6|alt=Map of Slovakia reflecting southern losses to Hungary|The territory in red was annexed to the Kingdom of Hungary in November 1938. On 3 November, SS official Adolf Eichmann met with several radical politicians—including Jozef Faláth of the HSĽS; leader of the Academic Hlinka Guard, Jozef Kirschbaum cs Jozef M. Kirschbaum sk Jozef M. Kirschbaum; Julius Janek, a local Hlinka Guard commander; Konrad Goldbach, a correspondent of the Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter; and German Party leader Franz Karmasin—at the Carlton Hotel.Rajcan 2018a 871Ward 2015 92Sokolovič 2013 113–114 Faláth drafted a plan to deport impoverished and foreign Jews to the ceded territory, which was approved by Tiso on 4 November.Ward 2015 92–93Kubátová Láníček 2018 22Rajcan 2018a 871 The plan probably had the knowledge and approval of Ferdinand Ďurčanský and Alexander Mach.Ward 2015 92 Around noon that day, Faláth went to the police headquarters in Bratislava and phoned police departments across the country, ordering them to carry out a joint operation with the Hlinka Guard.Frankl 2019 94 Before midnight, the police and guardsmen were to physically remove all Jews "without material means" to the territory that would be ceded to Hungary,Rajcan 2018a 871 in order to effect a "quick solution to the Jewish problem in Slovakia".sk rýchl[e] vyriešeni[e] židovského problému na SlovenskuFrankl 2019 94 Deportees were to have their property locked up and were provided only 50 Czechoslovak koruna (Kčs) worth of food.Frankl 2019 96 A few hours later, the orders were changed to target foreign Jews instead.Rajcan 2018a 872Frankl 2019 96 Jews from Carpathian Ruthenia or the Czech lands were to be forcibly returned to their place of origin.Frankl 2019 97 The contradictory orders increased the chaos and confusion that accompanied the deportation.Ward 2015 93 According to Czech historian Michal Frankl, the organizers of the deportation were inspired by the recent expulsion of Polish Jews from Germany in late October,Frankl 2019 94 of which Eichmann was certainly aware, in which thousands of Polish Jews were deported from Germany and rejected by Poland.Frankl 2019 95–96 Deportation Source Number of deporteesBánovce nad Bebravou62 Banská Štiavnica52 Bardejov110 Bratislava 260 Giraltovce 69 Hlohovec101Humenné 123 Kežmarok 237Michalovce 292 Nitra 205 Nové Mesto nad Váhom 76 Piešťany101Poprad228Prešov 197Sabinov 143 Snina 99Spišská Stará Ves 95Sobrance102Topoľčany 67 Trenčín 84Žilina 106 Zlaté Moravce 83From Nižňansky Slneková 1998 50. Omits the figure of 4,000 Jews from Bratislava district and numbers less than 50. From 4 to 7 November, between 4,000Frankl 2019 97 and 7,600 JewsHigher estimates rely on a figure of 4,000 Jews deported from Bratislava district (see Nižňansky Slneková 1998 50), which Michal Frankl considers an exaggeration; the Bratislava police only recorded 260 deportees. Frankl's estimate is about 4,000 deportees total.Frankl 2019 97 were deported, in a chaotic, pogrom-like operation in which Hlinka Guard, de Freiwillige Schutzstaffel, and the German Party participated.Hutzelmann 2018 21Sokolovič 2013 114–115 The victims were rounded up, loaded onto buses, and dropped off past the new border.Sokolovič 2013 114 About 260 were foreigners, such as Austrian Jews who had escaped into Czechoslovakia following the Anschluss.Frankl 2019 93 The bulk of the deportees were Jews with Polish citizenship, who were effectively stateless because they had been stripped of their Polish nationality while living abroad.Frankl 2019 97, 99 Young children, the elderly, and pregnant women were among those deported.Kubátová 2014 506 Deportees faced bullying and intimidation from the Hlinka GuardSokolovič 2013 116–117 and were warned that their presence in Slovakia was undesired and that they would face criminal charges if they attempted to return.Sokolovič 2013 115 However, most of the deportees—not just Slovak Jews, but also Polish citizens and stateless people—ignored the warning and made their way back home, which was unauthorized but quietly tolerated.Sokolovič 2013 115Frankl 2019 98–99 In many places, the Hlinka Guard's zeal was such that they continued the action after the order was rescinded; the Jews of Vranov nad Topľou were expelled on 7 November.Sokolovič 2013 115 Four Jews who tried to return to Banská Bystrica were deported again, but 70% of the 292 Jews deported from Michalovce had returned by 19 November.Frankl 2019 99 Meanwhile, Jews with a net worth of over 500,000 Kčs were arrested to prevent capital flight.Ward 2015 92Rajcan Vadkerty Hlavinka 2018 844 Jews with foreign citizenship, except German, Hungarian and Romanian nationality (who comprised most of the Jews with foreign citizenship in Slovakia at the time) were exempt from deportation.Frankl 2019 96 The arrests did not prevent a spike in capital flight,Ward 2015 93 and Hungary refused to admit the deported Jews, so Tiso canceled the operation on 7 November 1938.Rajcan 2018a 872Hutzelmann 2018 22 Detention Deportees were confined in makeshift tent camps at Miloslavov (hu Annamajor, de Michsdorf, near Bratislava) and Veľký Kýr (Nyitranagykér, near Nitra) on the new Slovak–Hungarian border during the winter.Rajcan 2018a 872Rajcan 2018b 886 The camps were located in the neutral zone of 3 km between the countries; there was an additional 1.5 km demilitarized zone on the Slovak side. Neither country accepted responsibility for them or guarded them, blaming the other country for the situation.Rajcan 2018b 886 Miloslavov was located on a road near Štvrtok na Ostrove (Csütörtök), 250 m from the new border.Rajcan 2018a 872 At both camps, there were initially no shelters, and especially children and elderly fell ill due to the wet winter weather.Rajcan 2018a 872Rajcan 2018b 886 At Miloslavov, the temperatures for the first week got as low as -5 C before the deportees obtained any shelters.Rajcan 2018a 872 Heinrich Schwartz, a representative of the Orthodox Religious Communities, and Marie Schmolka, director of HICEM Prague, were allowed to visit Miloslavov in late November.Rajcan 2018a 872 With the aid of Jewish organizations, the refugees obtained food, shelter, and more clothing.Rajcan 2018a 872 According to a 29 November letter from the president of Orthodox Religious Communities, the population of Veľký Kýr was 344, consisting of 132 men, 73 women, and 139 children and Miloslavov had more than 300, including 120 men, 77 women, and 105 children.Rajcan 2018b 886 Of the detainees at Miloslavov, 197 were stateless, although many of these had lived in the country for many years. Seven of the deportees had Slovak citizenship, thirty were from Carpathian Ruthenia, 28 originated in the local area, 22 were from Poland, and 38 from Germany.Rajcan 2018a 872 Another camp, at Šamorín, had 190 people: 108 men, 40 women and 42 children.Frankl 2019 103 In the letter, the community leader begged for the Slovak Jews to be allowed to go home and the other Jews to be released so that they could wind up their affairs and leave the country. He promised that the Jews not from Slovakia would live in centers or with relatives and that all expenses would be borne by the Orthodox community.Rajcan 2018b 886 At the same time, local officials worried that the tent camps would become a haven for infectious diseases, which could spread to neighboring Slovak communities.Rajcan 2018a 872Rajcan 2018b 886 On 30 November, a quarantine was imposed in Miloslavov, which also prevented aid from Jewish organizations in Bratislava.Rajcan 2018a 873 The poor conditions in the camps were condemned by the United Kingdom and France and worsened Slovakia's image abroad.Rajcan Vadkerty Hlavinka 2018 844 Aftermath and effects thumb|Polish Jews expelled from Nuremberg By early December, the Hungarian authorities also expelled several hundred Jews with foreign citizenship, although Czechoslovak Jews from southern Slovakia were de facto treated as Hungarian citizens. On 8 December, Slovak authorities issued another order that the deportation of Jews would not be done en masse but on a case-by-case basis and in line with Czechoslovak law. Jews from other countries (such as Poland or the Czech lands) were to be returned home, while stateless Jews were imprisoned in camps along the border. Although these orders did not say so explicitly, they implied that most of the deported Jews with Czechoslovak citizenship would be allowed to return home. After this, the remaining deportees were mostly stateless.Frankl 2019 97–98 At Veľký Kýr this was implemented beginning 12 December.Rajcan 2018b 886 On 19 December,Rajcan 2018a 873 118 deportees at Miloslavov were moved to Kühmeyer Inn on the outskirts of Bratislava (in the Červený Most cs Červený Most (Bratislava) sk area) and from there to a former ammunition factory in Patrónka, where they remained (according to Aron Grünhut) until the 1942 deportations.Frankl 2019 92, 112 According to Slovak National Archives documents, many of the Jews in Miloslavov were able to emigrate and the rest were deported overnight to Hungary in January 1939, in order to minimize publicity.Rajcan 2018a 873 On 21 February 1939, 158 Jews were released from Veľký Kýr, but it is unclear when the camp was shut down.Rajcan 2018b 886 Along with Germany's expulsion of Polish Jews in OctoberFrankl 2019 96 and Hungary's expulsion of Jews from the areas it annexed in 1938,Frankl 2019 94Segal 2016 70Ward 2015 94 the Slovak deportations were the first in central Europe.Johnson 2005 316Hutzelmann 2018 21 There were also expulsions after the Anschluss, the annexation of the Sudetenland, and Kristallnacht.Frankl 2019 95Osterloh 2015 73, 75–76 Frightened, many Slovak Jews tried to transfer their property abroad and attempt emigration.Hallon 2007 149–150 Over the winter, many refugee Jews from Germany and Austria managed to leave the country.Hutzelmann 2018 22 Between December 1938 and February 1939, more than 2.25 million Kčs were transferred illegally to the Czech lands, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom; additional amounts were transferred legally.Hallon 2007 149–150 The deportations reduced British investment, increasing dependence on German capital.Ward 2015 96 They also served as a rehearsal for the 1942 deportations,Johnson 2005 316 in which two-thirds of Slovak Jews were deported to ghettos and extermination camps in occupied Poland.Rajcan Vadkerty Hlavinka 2018 845, 847 Interpretations In Slovak historiography, the deportations are presented as the result of the cynical opportunism of the HSĽS leadership, which sought to scapegoat Jews for its own foreign policy failure. American historian James Mace Ward argues that the role of Hungary–Slovakia relations in the deportation have been ignored in the literature. According to Ward, the main cause of the deportation was that Slovak Jews were perceived as a security threat and loyal to the enemy by both the Hungarian and Slovak sides of the dispute.Ward 2015 93–94 Michal Frankl commented that the deportation of poor Jews and arrest of wealthy ones reflected two streams of antisemitism that portrayed Jews as foreign and poor Ostjuden on the one hand and as wealthy economic exploiters of Slovaks on the other.Frankl 2019 96 Notes References Citations 20em Sources 35em yes Frankl Michal Michal Frankl Země nikoho 1938. Deportace za hranice občanství Forum Historiae 2019 13 1 92–115 10.31577/forhist.2019.13.1.7 No Man’s Land in 1938. Deportation beyond the Bounds of Citizenship sk http://www.forumhistoriae.sk/en/clanok/no-mans-land-1938-deportation-beyond-bounds-citizenship free Hallon Ľudovít Arizácia na Slovensku 1939–1945 Aryanization in Slovakia 1939–1945 https://www.vse.cz/polek/download.php?lang=en&jnl=aop&pdf=187.pdf Acta Oeconomica Pragensia 2007 7 148–160 10.18267/j.aop.187 cs 1804-2112 15 Hutzelmann Barbara Hutzelmann Barbara Hausleitner Mariana Hazan Souzana Slowakei, Rumänien und Bulgarien Slovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria 2018 Institut für Zeitgeschichte Munich 978-3-11-036500-9 de Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933–1945 [The Persecution and Murder of European Jews by Nazi Germany 1933–1945] 13 Einführung: Slowakei Introduction: Slovakia 18–45 Johnson Owen V. Židovská komunita na Slovensku medzi ceskoslovenskou parlamentnou demokraciou a slovenským štátom v stredoeurópskom kontexte, Eduard Nižnanský (Prešov, Slovakia: Universum, 1999), 292 pp., 200 crowns (Slovak). Holocaust and Genocide Studies 2005 19 2 314–317 10.1093/hgs/dci033 Kubátová Hana Henry Patrick Jewish Resistance Against the Nazis 2014 Catholic University of America Press Washington, D.C. 978-0-8132-2589-0 504–518 en Jewish Resistance in Slovakia, 1938–1945 Kubátová Hana Láníček Jan The Jew in Czech and Slovak Imagination, 1938–89: Antisemitism, the Holocaust, and Zionism 2018 Brill Leiden, Boston 978-90-04-36244-4 en Nižňansky Eduard Eduard Nižňanský Slneková Veronika Die Deportationen der Juden in der Zeit des autonomen Landes Slowakei am 4./5.11.1938 1998 Bohemia 39 1 33–51 10.18447/BoZ-1998-591 de https://www.bohemia-online.de/index.php/bohemia/article/view/591/830 https://web.archive.org/web/20190108050251/https://www.bohemia-online.de/index.php/bohemia/article/view/591/830 dead 8 January 2019 Osterloh Jörg Gruner Wolf Wolf Gruner Osterloh Jörg Heise Bernard The Greater German Reich and the Jews: Nazi Persecution Policies in the Annexed Territories 1935–1945 The Greater German Reich and the Jews 2015 New York War and Genocide Berghahn Books 978-1-78238-444-1 68–98 en Sudetenland Nina Paulovičová Holocaust Memory and Antisemitism in Slovakia: The Postwar Era to the Present Antisemitism Studies Indiana University Press 2018 2 1 4–34 10.2979/antistud.2.1.02 165383570 Rajcan Vanda Vadkerty Madeline Ján Hlavinka Slovakia Megargee Geoffrey P. Geoffrey P. Megargee White Joseph R. Hecker Mel Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 3 Camps and Ghettos under European Regimes Aligned with Nazi Germany Bloomington 978-0-253-02373-5 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 2018 842–852 Rajcan Vanda Miloslavov Megargee Geoffrey P. White Joseph R. Hecker Mel Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 3 Camps and Ghettos under European Regimes Aligned with Nazi Germany 978-0-253-02373-5 Bloomington United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 2018a 871–873 Rajcan Vanda Veľký Kýr Megargee Geoffrey P. White Joseph R. Hecker Mel Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 3 Camps and Ghettos under European Regimes Aligned with Nazi Germany 978-0-253-02373-5 Bloomington United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 2018b 885–887 Segal Raz Genocide in the Carpathians: War, Social Breakdown, and Mass Violence, 1914–1945 2016 Stanford University Press Stanford 978-0-8047-9897-6 en Sokolovič Peter Hlinkova Garda 1938 – 1945 Hlinka Guard 1938 – 1945 2013 National Memory Institute Bratislava 978-80-89335-10-7 https://www.upn.gov.sk/publikacie_web/hlinkova-garda.pdf sk Ward James Mace Priest, Politician, Collaborator: Jozef Tiso and the Making of Fascist Slovakia 2013 Ithaka Cornell University Press 978-0-8014-6812-4 en Ward James Mace The 1938 First Vienna Award and the Holocaust in Slovakia Holocaust and Genocide Studies 2015 29 1 76–108 10.1093/hgs/dcv004 8756-6583 Further reading Frankl Michal Places, Spaces, and Voids in the Holocaust 2021 Wallstein Verlag 978-3-8353-3952-1 55–86 Cast Out of Civilized Society: Refugees in the No Man’s Land between Slovakia and Hungary in 1938 Nižňanský Eduard Deportácie Židov v novembri 1938 zo Slovenska v hláseniach styčných dôstojníkov Studia Historica Nitriensia 1998 7 80-8050-227-7 259–285 sk Nižňanský Eduard Prvé deportácie židov z územia Slovenska v novembri 1938 a úloha Jozefa Falátha a Adolfa Eichmanna The First Deportation of Jews from Slovakia in November 1938 and the Role of Jozef Faláth and Adolf Eichmann Židovská komunita na Slovensku medzi československou parlamentnou demokraciou a slovenským štátom v stredoeurópskom kontexte The Jewish Community in Slovakia between Czechoslovak Parliamentary Democracy and the Slovak State in the Central European Context 1999 Universum Prešov 978-80-967753-3-0 sk http://www.dejiny.sk/Whois/Nizn/Articles%2024.htm Sihelníková Zuzana 'No man's land': deportations from Slovak territory in 1938: a case study of the Jewish community of Čadca Holocaust Studies 2023 30 3 475–484 10.1080/17504902.2023.2286083 Waters Leslie Borders on the Move: Territorial Change and Ethnic Cleansing in the Hungarian-Slovak Borderlands, 1938-1948 2020 Boydell & Brewer 978-1-64825-001-9 en External links Spatial Queries and the First Deportations from Slovakia, European Holocaust Research Infrastructure Category:1938 in Slovakia Category:Expulsions of Jews Category:November 1938 in Europe Category:The Holocaust in Slovakia Category:Deportation