La destruction des Juifs de Slovaquie est peu connue en France. Peter Salner restitue ces pages de l’histoire de la Shoah, en partie oubliées, à partir d’entretiens menés selon la méthode du terrain ethnographique auprès de survivants d’une communauté juive qui, en 1930, représentait 4 % de la population totale, et dont plus de 75 % furent exterminés. Ces témoignages retracent la mise en place de l’arsenal juridique de l’État slovaque (1938-1945) ayant légalisé ce massacre, sans occulter la dimension intime de ces récits.En suivant une ligne chronologique, l’auteur revient sur la destruction, mais aussi sur les années qui ont l’ont précédée puis sur le retour des survivants. Il s’arrête sur la mémoire difficile de la Shoah dans l’immédiat après-guerre (1945-1948) et durant le communisme (1948-1989) dans un chapitre inédit, ajouté pour la version française, qui pose cette question intrigante : « Quand la Shoah a-t-elle pris fin ? »

Les annexes publiées dans la version originale – contextes historique et juridique, iconographie – ont été augmentées dans le présent volume, traduites et adaptées au lectorat francophone. Ce second volume rassemble un riche ensemble documentaire, incluant un registre de parcours de vie des témoins cités, des pièces juridiques ainsi qu'un cahier iconographique où le lecteur trouvera des images anonymes ou signées par des photographes slovaques et français (Pavol Poljak, Ivan Kozáček, Marc Sagnol).

This paper employs the oral history method to analyze Jewish conversion during the Holocaust. Between 1938 and 1945, the Slovak Republic was governed by the antisemitic & Lcaron;ud & aacute;k regime, whose policies culminated in the deportations of Jews to Nazi death camps. In a society heavily influenced by the Catholic Church, many Jews turned to conversion as a survival strategy. Although most regarded baptism as merely a formal, temporary measure, the decision was not easy, as converting to Christianity meant abandoning Judaism, the Jewish community, and the traditions of their ancestors. Many Christian priests faced dilemmas of their own. Accepting a Jewish candidate for baptism required them to choose between two approaches: the "missionary" approach, which demanded a time-intensive preparation period that heightened the candidate's risk of deportation, or the "rescuer" approach, which prioritized immediate protection over rigorous religious instruction. Conversion, however, was not a widespread phenomenon. Many Jews, despite the dangers they faced, adhered to the tenets of their faith, including practices such as circumcising newborn sons.

Abstract This paper employs the oral history method to analyze Jewish conversion during the Holocaust. Between 1938 and 1945, the Slovak Republic was governed by the antisemitic Ľudák regime, whose policies culminated in the deportations of Jews to Nazi death camps. In a society heavily influenced by the Catholic Church, many Jews turned to conversion as a survival strategy. Although most regarded baptism as merely a formal, temporary measure, the decision was not easy, as converting to Christianity meant abandoning Judaism, the Jewish community, and the traditions of their ancestors. Many Christian priests faced dilemmas of their own. Accepting a Jewish candidate for baptism required them to choose between two approaches: the “missionary” approach, which demanded a time-intensive preparation period that heightened the candidate’s risk of deportation, or the “rescuer” approach, which prioritized immediate protection over rigorous religious instruction. Conversion, however, was not a widespread phenomenon. Many Jews, despite the dangers they faced, adhered to the tenets of their faith, including practices such as circumcising newborn sons.

1944 was characterized by dramatic events that negatively affected the fate of Jews in the war-time Slovak Republic including those territories, which became controlled by Hungary after the Vienna Award. This study analyses strategies that helped the Jews to survive. It focuses mainly on the results of the Oral history project: The Fates of those who survived the Holocaust as well as the already published or hand-written recollections of the then witnesses. Baptism represented a frequent strategy of a rescue based on an assumption that the authority of the Church and the President - a Catholic priest would protect the endangered ones. Various state exemptions were expected to protect not only the concerned person, but his/her whole family. After the Germans occupied Slovakia, the Slovak legislation became invalid. Thus the fake "Aryan" papers were considered to secure ostensibly greater protection. The Slovak National Uprising enabled the Jews to take active part in the fight against fascism. After the Uprising was defeated, the Jews were seeking their rescue in various forms of hiding. However, soon it became clear that no particular strategy could secure their survival. Only individual skills, coincidence, the majority attitudes and/or (non)acting of perpetrators proved to be effective.

Kniha Židia na Slovensku : povojnové generácie prezentuje doterajšie poznatky z etnologických výskumov druhej a tretej poholokaustovej generácie, nevynecháva však ani prvú generáciu. Okrem úvodnej a záverečnej informatívnej časti je text rozdelený do troch blokov (Generácia prežitia; Deti holokaustu; Súčasnosť a budúcnosť komunity). S využitím metódy oral history autor absolvoval viac ako 70 hĺbkových rozhovorov, zameraných na témy ako osud rodičov počas holokaustu, identita, medzigeneračná komunikácia či prenos traumy. Vzhľadom na skutočnosť, že židovskú komunitu v uplynulých sto rokov negatívne zasiahli tri veľké emigračné vlny (deportácie v období holokaustu, „alija nádeje“ do Palestíny/Izraela krátko po oslobodení a reakcia na okupáciu Československa vojskami Varšavskej zmluvy v roku 1968) autor prináša aj poznatky a názory ľudí, ktorí zvolili toto riešenie, neprerušili však spojenie so Slovenskom.

This paper uses archival and ethnological research to analyze the fates of former synagogues during two totalitarian regimes in present-day Slovakia. The processes described here were catalyzed by the Holocaust. Between 1938 and 1945, over 100,000 Jews from Slovakia were murdered. Out of the 228 Jewish religious communities (JRCs) active before the war, only 79 were reconstituted after liberation. Most were later disbanded because of aliyah to Palestine/Israel. Their abandoned synagogues passed into the administration of the newly founded Central Union of Jewish Religious Communities (CUJRC). During the Communist era (1948-1989), the majority of these synagogues were sold because the CUJRC did not have sufficient resources for their maintenance. The second section of this paper discusses synagogues in different parts of Slovakia to show how representatives of the CUJRC tried to ensure the temples' new owners did not violate their religious dignity. Purchase and sale agreements generally prohibited using the synagogues for entertainment purposes, instead preferring their conversion into warehouses, silos, workshops, etc. Although, as soon as the 1940s, part of the community requested that the synagogues be used as cultural centers, this did not happen on a large scale until after the revolution of 1989. A synagogue is not defined by its four walls but rather by the activities that take place inside it. The repurposed buildings are frequently located in regions with no active Jewish organizations. They are mere relics of the past and, bar a few exceptions, do not contribute to the renewal of traditional Jewish life. Believers nevertheless tend to have a negative view of the events that are held in the former synagogues, with some going as far as to consider them disrespectful. Even many secular Jews feel that the former synagogues do not fulfil their original purpose and have definitively transformed into non -synagogues.

This paper seeks to answer the question of why, in the 21st century, Jews from the largest Jewish community in Slovakia have increasingly begun to prefer cremation over traditional Jewish burial. Importantly, Judaism views the act of cremation as a repudiation of faith in the afterlife, which incurs punishment in the form of exclusion from the resurrection after the prophesied coming of the Messiah. There is also a historical case against cremation, based on the Nazis' burning of the bodies of murdered concentration camp inmates. Ethnological research shows that the main reason for this preferential shift is the Holocaust, one of the consequences of which was that part of the survivors lost their faith in God, who, in their view, had allowed the tragedy to take place. At the same time, many of these survivors wished for their urns to be stored at a Jewish cemetery. Since the start of the third millennium, there has been growing pressure to accommodate this wish. The leadership of the Bratislava Jewish Religious Community (JRC) debated the issue in 2007, ultimately deciding to establish a columbarium on the premises of one of the city's two Jewish cemeteries. This paper's paradoxical conclusion is that, by opting for cremation, some members of the community (and their descendants) renounce Judaism while simultaneously reaffirming their Jewish identity and communal belonging.

On October 28, 1918, after the end of the Great War, Slovakia became part of the Czechoslovak Republic. Two decades later, on October 6, 1938, the country's political leadership declared autonomy, and within a few months, on March 14, 1939, the Slovak National Assembly voted for the establishment of an independent state. Already during the period of autonomy, the government adopted anti-Jewish legislation (this trend would continue throughout the brief lifespan of the new state) aimed at gradually shutting Jews out of social and economic life. This state-sponsored persecution of the Jews culminated in mass deportations which began in 1942. In Central Europe, Holocaust remembrance typically involves events that took place on the territory of the given state. In Slovakia, these include the anniversary of the first transport (March 25, 1942) and especially September 9, 1942, when the Slovak National Assembly issued Decree 198/1941 on the Legal Status of the Jews. On September 13, 2000, the National Council of the Slovak Republic established September 9 as Memorial Day for Victims of the Holocaust and Racial Violence. To understand the criminal nature of the wartime Slovak regime, it is important to examine Constitutional Act 68/1942 on the Resettlement of the Jews, passed by the national assembly on May 15, 1942, by which time nearly 30,000 Jews had already been deported to concentration camps. The assembly thus retroactively legitimated deportations which in most cases ended in the death of the Jewish victims. This article centers on survivors' testimonies about the impact of Act 68/1942 on them and their families. The selected recollections illustrate the process of the deportations as well as ways of avoiding them.

Keď hľadíme na strednú Európu optikou 20.storočia, vidíme, že k neodmysliteľným súčastiam vari každej doby, štátu či režimu patrili (e)migračné pohyby obyvateľstva.Občas dobrovoľne, častejšie však v dôsledku mocenského či ekonomického násilia, sa na nich podieľali jednotlivci, ale tiež celé etnické, náboženské či sociálne zložky obyvateľstva.Keď pohľad zaostríme na územie bývalého Československa, môžeme ešte jasnejšie vnímať kvantitatívnu i kvalitatívnu rôznorodosť týchto procesov.Podľa konkrétnej situácie možno rozlišovať ilegálne úteky, 2 štátom tolerované odchody alebo príchody a v určitých obdobiach aj organizované deportácie, výmeny obyvateľstva, armádne ťaženia

Stretnutie (The Meeting) is a group formed in October 2004 by Jewish emigrants from Bratislava (the capital of Slovakia) who fled Czechoslovakia following the invasion of the Warsaw Pact armies in August 1968. The original intention behind its founding was to hold a reunion that would bring together people who, forty years after emigrating, lived in Israel, in different states across Europe and North America, and in Australia. The meeting took place in May 2005 in Bratislava, drawing over 200 participants. Encouraged by this initial success, the group and its website continued its activities, and it remains operational to this day. This paper examines the early years of The Meeting's existence (2004-2009). Analyzing the correspondence on its website, it attempts to elucidate the rationale behind the group's creation, as well as the reasons for its persisting appeal and the emigrants' relationship to the country and milieu from which they fled.

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