Bratislava dispatches reported today continued anti-Semitic pressure in Slovakia, with the Hlinka Guards enforcing unofficial measure
The Guards have caused all but three coffee houses in Bratislava to bar Jews. Other measures include ordering of Jewish shops to display “Jewish enterprise” signs. At the same time, the Government has created a labor service for Jews and Slovaks found unable to perform military service.
The Bratislava correspondent of the newspaper De Standard quoted Prime Minister Albert Tuka as telling him in an interview that the Government did not intend to “oppose itself to anti-Semitic tendencies.” “The Jewish problem in Slovakia,” Tuka said, “will be solved along such lines as to reduce the predominating position of the Jews in State affairs and in business to normal proportions.”
Slovak Minister of Economics Gezar Medricky has announced that the licenses of 1,200 Jewish tradesmen have so far been cancelled and the process of “Aryanization” is not yet completed, according to a report in the Kattowice Oberschlesische Kurier, Nazi paper in Poland. Medricky is quoted as adding that elimination of Jews from ownership of land will be one of the Slovak Government’s next measures.
The paper declares that Slovak public opinion is dissatisfied with the “slow progress” of the Government in solving the Jewish problem and the population is therefore taking anti-Jewish measures locally. There have been many instances in smaller towns of Jews being compelled to do forced labor, it is reported. In Sarosch, eastern Slovakia, all Jews and gypsies were ordered to clean the streets and parks.
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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.
