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Slovaks, Fearing “day of Retaliation,” Risk Their Lives to Help Persecuted Jews

June 30, 1942
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Convinced that “the day of retaliation” for the merciless atrocities against Jews will come “when America will take an active part on the battlefront in Europe,” and ashamed of the fact that their Government is uprooting tens of thousands of Jews and deporting them into occupied Eastern territory hundreds of Slovaks are risking their lives by offering shelter to Slovakian Jews who hide to escape being expelled from Slovakia, it was reliably reported here today.

The report coincided with an announcement made in Bratislava today by the Slovakian Minister Sano Mach, who, speaking over the radio, stated that 45,000 Jews-half of Slovakia’s Jewish population – had been deported by the end of May. The remaining 45,000 will be expelled by the end of September, he said. No Jew now holds Slovakian citizenship, he added.

No reports are available concerning the fate of the Jewish deportees who were sent to Eastern Europe jammed into cattle-cars. Nothing is known, likewise, of the fate of thousands of Jewish girls who were seized and sent eastwards to an unknown destination. In most cases entire families have been separated. Even babies have been taken from their mothers.

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