Swedish Interventions in the Tragedy of the Jews of Slovakia
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N Swedish interventions in the tragedy J of the Jews of Slovakia Denisa Nešťáková and Eduard Nižňanský Abstract • This article describes a largely unknown Swedish effort to intervene in deportations of Jews of Slovakia between 1942 and 1944. Swedish officials and religious leaders used their diplo- matic correspondence with the Slovak government to extract some Jewish individuals and later on the whole Jewish community of Slovakia from deportations by their government and eventually by German officials. Despite the efforts of the Swedish Royal Consulate in Bratislava, the Swedish arch bishop, Erling Eidem, and the Slovak consul, Bohumil Pissko, in Stockholm, and despite the acts taken by some Slovak ministries, the Slovak officials, including the president of the Slovak Republic, Jozef Tiso, revoked further negotiations in the autumn of 1944. However, the negotiations between Slovakia and Sweden created a scope for actions to protect some Jewish individuals which were doomed to failure because of the political situation. Nevertheless, this plan and the previous diplomatic interventions are significant for a description of the almost unknown Swedish and Slovak efforts to save the Jews of Slovakia. Repeated Swedish offers to take in Jewish individuals and later the whole community could well have prepared the way for larger rescues. These never occurred, given the Slovak interest in deporting their own Jewish citizens and later the German occupation of Slovakia. Research on Sweden’s attempts the ‘opening’ of the archives in some post- to assist Jews communist countries and new scholars tak- In view of the abundance of studies of the ing up this particular topic have significantly Holocaust, the absence of major scholarly improved research opportunities. works offering comprehensive investigations The rescue of Danish Jews, and Raoul of the Swedish attempts at rescuing Slovak Wallenberg’s rescue of Jews from Budapest Jews is somewhat surprising. However, fol- during the Holocaust have justifiably received lowing Hilberg’s narrative (1961), which much attention from scholars, students details the step-wise escalation from persecu- and laymen alike. Scholars such as Richard tion to mass murder in National Socialist pol- Breitman also investigated American rescue icy and practice, the rescue actions have been activities in Sweden and their impact on fur- pushed to the periphery. Nevertheless, some ther Swedish involvement in providing refuge of the Swedish attempts to assist European to European Jews (Breitman 1993). The Jewry have been well researched. Swedish substantial works of Steven Koblik (1989) rescue efforts related to the Jewish commu- provide us with a detailed view of different nities in Norway, Denmark and Hungary phases of Swedish attempts to help European during the Holocaust are well known. The Jews. The most recent research of Simo Muir first scholarly works on Sweden’s attempts to (2016) exemplifies the cooperation within assist European Jews were published in the the Finnish and Swedish Jewish leadership early 1980s. Since then, the establishment of after Germany’s takeover of Hungary and the the Raoul Wallenberg Committee in 1981, appearance of potential danger for Finnish 22 Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 27, No. 2 Jewry. Yet the Swedish rescue efforts were various materials have been held not only in not limited to aid in Denmark or Finland or Slovakia, but also in Israel and Sweden. to Raoul Wallenberg and Hungarian Jewry. Although some of the Swedish efforts Scholars of the Holocaust in Slovakia can be described as attempts by individuals, have also regarded the Swedish intervention a deeper investigation of available sources in the case of the Jews of Slovakia as minor reveals that these attempts cannot be char- in the historiography of the Holocaust. acterised so simply. This study incorpor- Despite the publication of the correspond- ates the voices of the representatives of the ence between the Swedish archbishop Eidem Slovak–Swedish communication via offi- and the Catholic priest Tiso as early as 1992 cial documents and diplomatic or private (Kamenec 1992: 221–2), there has been no correspondence. further research elaborating on the docu- ments more thoroughly. The same texts reap- Swedish attempts to assist the Jews peared in 2005, in a collection of documents of Slovakia titled The Holocaust in Slovakia IV (Nižňanský 2003: 287–9), including also comments and It is not generally known that before and documents of the German authorities and after the rescue of Danish Jews and the Jews their attitude towards the correspondence of Budapest, Sweden tried to offer a safe between Eidem and Tiso. In the seminal haven to Jewish individuals and later to the work of Ján Hlavinka and Eduard Nižňanský remaining Jewish community in Slovakia readers must look to the footnotes of the through diplomatic interventions. The story work to learn about the ‘personal interven- of Swedish efforts to shelter a selected group tion of a protestant archbishop from Uppsala’ of Jews from the Holocaust nonetheless helps (Hlavinka and Nižňanský 2009: 131). These to supply part of the context for the historiog- works introduced the Swedish involvement raphy of the Holocaust. Thanks to the latest in the fate of Jews of Slovakia to scholarly research on the Holocaust in Slovakia, previ- research. Yet Bohumil Pissko – a key actor ously unknown and unpublished documents in the rescue attempts – or cases of rescuing has brought to light evidence of Swedish individ uals do not appear. Furthermore, none intervention in the tragedy of the Jews of of these crucial works recognises Swedish Slovakia. By examining Swedish interven- attempts to assist the Jews of Slovakia in tions in Slovakia, we seek not only to enrich depth. As a result, it leaves little room for dis- our perception of Swedish rescue efforts in cussion of Swedish interventions in the trag- general but also to understand more thor- edy of the Jews of Slovakia. oughly the significance of those efforts and It is important to note that the lack of complex conditions and situation in which attention to Swedish interventions does not these efforts were made. seem to stem from a paucity of source mate- This article undertakes a critical analy- rials. Investigated sources, which consist sis of accounts found in official documents of diplomatic and official correspondence and diplomatic correspondence to arrive at a between Slovakia and Sweden, are avail- more comprehensive and nuanced depiction able in the Slovak National Archives, the of Swedish attempts to intervene in the trag- State Archives of Nitra and Yad Vashem. edy of the Jews of Slovakia. In doing so, it Not only have scholars had access to official sheds light on the Slovak consul in Sweden, documents, which we have investigated, but who is relatively absent from Holocaust Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 27, No. 2 23 historiography, and whose activities invite chapter describes the rescue-related activities an investigation of Swedish intervention acts of Soviet citizens of Jewish origin in Slovakia against the antisemitic policy in Slovakia and in 1942. In the following phase we discuss the deportations of Jews from Slovakia in par- the rescue-related activities related to indi- ticular. Drawing upon previously unknown vidual cases of Slovak Jews between 1942 primary sources, we develop this argument and 1944. In the last phase Swedish rescue- in three parts. First, we demonstrate how the related activities relating to the remaining ‘final solution’ was implemented in Slovakia. Jewish community as a whole took place in Next, we examine the stages of Swedish 1944 and 1945. intervention, notably how the Swedish Royal Consulate in Bratislava tried to intervene and The ‘final solution’ in Slovakia how different Slovak ministries reacted, and especially how the Slovak consul in Sweden, The Munich Accords of 1938 represented an Bohumil Pissko, and the Swedish archbishop, important change in the geopolitical situ ation Erling Eidem, cooperated on the plan to res- in Europe and recognition of the domin ance cue Slovak Jewry. We include in our analy- of Nazi Germany over Central Europe. The sis the Slovak governmental representatives’ Hlinka Slovak People’s Party (HSPP) – a communication exchange with the Swedish conservative right-wing political party with authorities as well as the interactions between strong Christian and nationalist orientation the president of the Slovak Republic and the with antisemitic, anti-Czech, anti-Hun- Swedish archbishop, Eidem. Finally, we dis- garian elements led by the Catholic priest cuss the post-war silence over the Swedish Jozef Tiso – exploited the weakening of the rescue attempts in Slovakia. Following three Republic of Czechoslovakia and declared the different phases of Swedish intervention we autonomy of Slovakia in Žilina on 6 October discuss the intervention accordingly. The first 1938. In the Manifesto of the Slovak Nation, Jozef Tiso meeting Adolf Hitler in Salzburg in July 1940. Archive of ČTK. 24 Nordisk judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | Vol. 27, No. 2 the new HSPP’s elite declared their anti- ciples, implementing elements of fascism. The semitic orientation: ‘We shall persist on the regime was replaced to better match the Nazi side of nations fighting against the Marxist- ideology and politics. Conditions for imple- Jewish ideology of dominance and violence’ menting the ‘final solution’ for the ‘Jewish (Slovenská Pravda, 8.10.1938). The constitu- question’ in Slovakia were a result of the inter- tion of the later Slovak Republic created a national politics of Germany in combination one-party political system with the HSPP as with autochthonous anti-Jewish tenden- the governing party. Thus, the HSPP ruled cies within Slovak society and their imple- the country during the first Slovak Republic mentation in antisemitic laws introduced by (1939–45) when the deportations of Slovak Slovak political institutions – government, Jews took place. Therefore, the HSPP can be parliament, the state council and Jozef Tiso, regarded as a major agent in the deportations.