The Rev. Josef Tiso, pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic President of the Nazi puppet-state of Slovakia who once declared that “in deporting Jews, Slovakia is acting in accordance with the Lord God’s command,” died yesterday in Bratislava, the Berlin radio reported today.
The death of the 56-year old priest who considered the Jews “Slovakia’s eternal enemies,” will not bring any relief to the 20,000 Jews still remaining in Slovakia. This was made clear by Sano Mach, Slovakia’s Minister of Interior, who, in a broadcast from Bratislava, announced that all Jews who remained in the country following the mass-deportations of tens of thousands of Jewish families to Poland, will be transported within the next two months to Nazi-held eastern territory.
In justifying the anti-Jewish laws in Slovakia and the deportation of the Jews from the country, Rev. Tiso always claimed that whatever step his government took against Jews were taken “from love of our own people.” In one of his last speeches, at a church meeting in the provincial town of Holitch, he said: “We would be very badly off if we had not rid ourselves of the Jews who constitute an element harming our state.”
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.
