A large number of Bratislava Jews are now hiding in the woods of Slovakia like hunted animals, trying to escape deportation to labor camps or Nazi-occupied eastern territories, according to reliable information reaching Czechoslovak government circles here today.
The information is substantiated by telegraphic reports from Switzerland which quoted the Slovakian Nazi paper Grenzbote as stating that no hiding place will save the Jews from being discovered and deported. The Grenzbote adds that deportation of Jews from Slovakia into Nazi-held Galicia is going on at full speed.
An order prohibiting Jews from entering the Slovak city of Zilina without special permission has been issued by the local authorities, according to the Slovak newspaper Gardista, organ of the anti-Semitic Hlinka Guards. The same paper also reports that the municipal council of Uherske-Hradiste has decided to demolish the local synagogue.
In the Czech Protectorate an order was issued to all non-Jewish inhabitants of the fortress town Therezin to complete the evacuation from the town by May 31.Thousands of Jews from Prague and other Czech cities have been brought to Therezin and dumped into the fortress dungeons there. It is assumed that the Nazi commissioner, Reinhard Heydrich, is determined to have all the Jews of the Czech Protectorate “isolated” in Therezin within the next two months. The Therezin municipality is at present discharging its employees who are being assigned to other municipalities.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
