BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS Reflections on Slovak History
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BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS Reflections on Slovak History. Edited by Stanislav J. Kirschbaum and Anne C. R. Roman. Toronto: Slovak World Congress, 1987. 183 pp. $12.00. The chapters in this volume were presented originally as papers at a con- ference organized by the Slovak World Congress in 1984. The work is a collabo- rative effort at an overview of Slovak history by a group of eight authors of Slovak origin, mostly younger scholars brought up and educated in the West and "unburdened by any participation in Slovak political life" (dust jacket). The reader is led to expect an account that is not heavily partisan or politically moti- vated, and that is what he gets. The old biases that have dominated the writing of Slovak history in the past-Czech, Czechoslovak, Slovak Czechophile, Marxist, as well as the Czechophobe and militantly Catholic viewpoint of refugees from the wartime Slovak Republic-are noticeably absent. Eight chapters trace the chronological development of Slovak history from the Great Moravian Empire to contemporary Czechoslovakia. In two overlapping chapterts, Vladimir Bubrin and Theodoric J. Zfbek chronicle the Slovaks' "first state organization"-Great Moravia-and the famous mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius to it. The "leading role" of the ancestors of today's Slovaks in Great Moravia is confidently asserted, and the possibility of it being "the first state common to both the Czechs and Slovaks" is barely mentioned. R. Vladimir Baumgarten presents a familiar account of the Slovaks under Magyar rule, from the tenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries, focusing on their fledgling efforts and their differences with the Czechs during the Revolution of 1848. Edita Bostk is notably perceptive and even-handed in depicting the episodic and problem-ridden cooperation of the Czechs and Slovaks during the Slovak national movement from 1848 to 1914. So, too, is Susan Mikula in dealing with the Slovaks' frustrating con- frontation with Czechoslovakism and state centralism in interwar Czechoslovakia. The most difficult and sensitive historical periods, those of the independent Slovak republic of 1939-1945 and of Slovakia in postwar Communist Czechoslovakia, are handled knowledgeably and in balanced fashion by Stanislav J. Kirschbaum. There is stress on the valuable experience of self-gov- ernment acquired by the Slovaks in their own state and the importance of the Slovak National Uprising of 1944 for the gaining of some measure of Slovak au- tonomy and ultimately federalism in postwar Czechoslovakia. The painful issue of Slovak anti-Semitism in the wartime republic is largely left to a subsequent chapter, where Kurt K. Newmann merely reminisces about his own eyewitness observations and experiences. In the concluding chapter, "The Challenge of Slovak Literature," Peter Petro emphasizes the close tie of the romantic literature of the nineteenth century national revival with subsequent Slovak strivings. There is a useful core bibliography of books and articles in English and other European languages, although not a single title in Hungarian is to be found there or in the footnotes. Reflections on Slovak History is not a work of heavy scholarship or bold re- visionism. Rather, it is a brief, competent, historical outline and summary, accu- rate, clearly written, and tenable in its generalizations and conclusions. Given the great scarcity of trustworthy publications on Slovak history in English, it is to be welcomed. There are some minor shortcomings. Because the authors focus tightly on the Slovaks themselves, one learns little of the Hungarian and Czechoslovak frameworks within which the Slovak nation had to develop, a par- ticular handicap for non-specialist readers. The often influential Slovak 116 Protestant minority receives passing mention. Perhaps because they are so de- termined to avoid a polemical tone, the authors do not tackle the many troublesome issues that have divided Slovaks and Magyars and Slovaks and Czechs as inci- sively as they deserve. But some resolute investigations and judgments remain a desideratum for the future. Clinical historiography requires it, and so do present and future generations of Slovaks, Czechs, and Hungarians, who need to come to terms with their mutual past in order to overcome it. Logically, that task falls primarily to Slovak scholars, but Czechs and Hungarians must help, too-and may they be as competent and objective as these Slovak colleagues! Joseph Frederick Zacek State University of New York at Albany Abraham Fuchs. The Unheeded Cry. The gripping story of Rabbi Weissmandl, the valiant Holocaust leader who battled both Allied indifference and Nazi hatred. Translated from the original Hebrew Karati V'ein Oneh. "Artscroll History Series." Brooklin, NY: Mesorah Publications, Ltd., 1984. Illustrations. 288 pp. $12.90 cloth; $10.00 paper. Emanuel A. Frieder. Lhatsil Nasfsham, Darko shel Rav Tzair b'Shnoth Ha- Shoah. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1986. Illustrations. x, 348 pp. The literature on the Holocaust has dealt frequently with the quality of Jewish leadership during that fateful period. The Nazi-coined expression Judenrat (Jewish Council) became an equivalent for collaboration with the enemy. Although today we know much more, and have learned to differentiate among various types of Judenräten, we still consider them in a pejorative light. The Slovak Ústrediia hdov (Jewish Center) was a Judenrat as well, and in several ways exemplified its frightening aspects. The major deviation from the stereotyped model was, however, the development of a sort of underground leader- ship which endeavored to exploit the Slovak government's imposed body for saving Jews both at home and abroad. This so-called Pracound skupina (Working Group) was composed of various personalities: youths and adults; men and one woman; religious; a convert to Christianity; religiously indifferent; Zionists; assimilationists; and unaffiliated. It included the head of the 1'Tstred?fa Zidov as well as individuals who entered the institution's premises illegally. Altogether, this group constituted an antithesis of Hannah Arendt's famous de- scription of the incompetent Jewish leadership during the Holocaust. The books under review are devoted to two rabbis active in the Working Group, the deeply orthodox Chaim Michael Dov Weissmandel and the modern-orthodox Abraham-Abba (Armin) Frieder. They were so different: one grew up in the best traditions of the intransigent Slovak religious Jewry; the other was a graduate of rabbinic schools as well as of Comenius University in Bratislava. Both were highly intelligent and courageous in impossible circumstances. Weissmandel, the senior of the two, was the brain of the group; Frieder, well acquainted with Bratislava's society and on friendly terms with Slovak Minister of Education Jozef Sivak, was one of its principal performers. The major act of this group was its attempt to halt the deportations from Slovakia and to prevent the further exter- mination of European Jewry. This was to be done through the SS advisor for Jewish Affairs to the Slovak government, Dieter Wisliceny.' The story of the rescue activities constitutes the backbone of both books. Abraham Fuchs, a Romanian-born Israeli scholar and writer, has developed his understanding of Slovak-Jewish affairs through meticulous research. He based his present study on Weissmandel's autobiographical work, Min Ha- Metzar [Out of the Depths] (New York,1960), which was published posthumously by .