Armed Resistance Against Deportation of Jews in Slovakia, Official Report Says

Armed resistance was offered by the populations in a number of townships in Slovakia in an attempt to prevent the deportation of Jews, it is reported in a survey prepared here by the Czechoslovakian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The survey also discusses the position of the Jews in Bohemia and Moravia, pointing out that at the end of 1942, no Jews were left in these two provinces. “Out of the 90,000 Czech Jews,” the survey states, “more than 72,000 have been deported. All the provincial towns in Bohemia which once had large Jewish communities have been cleared ( the last ones were Tabor, Pelhrmov and Mlada Boleslav, whence the remaining Jews were expelled in February, 1943.)”

Stressing the peaceful relations which for many centuries existed between the Czech and Jewish populations in Bohemia and Moravia, the survey desoribes the efforts made by the Czech authorities to delay and mitigate the anti-Jewish measures forced upon Czechoslovakia by the German overlords. It gives an account of successive restrictions and oppressive decrees leading up to the complete extinction of Jewish life in the Protectorate.

“In June, 1942,” it says, “deportation to Poland began on a large scale. The Gestapo was instructed to prepare by every Monday and Thursday contingents of a thousand Jews each. Those to leave were given a day or two notice. The Nazi records of the Jewish registration were out of date, and it often happened that call-up cards were addressed to persons who had died years ago, had left the country or had already been deported. In such cases the daily rota of a thousand was made up by people simply picked up from the streets, or at night time dragged from their beds. The Gestapo took a delight in so selecting the deportees that families were split, wives separated from their husbands and small children from their mothers. Those left at home were never allowed to bid farewell to their relatives or friends. But sometimes their Czech friends could watch those gloomy processions of the outlawed marching to the railway station and passing for the last time through the streets of Prague.”