The tragic story of how 200 Slovak Jews who had been hiding in caves in the Tatra Mountains near Lonmitza in a desperate effort to escape deportation to Polish ghettos, were seized by the Slovak police authorities and shipped to Poland, is reported here today.
The Jews, who formerly lived in the townships of Poprac, Kesmark and adjoining villages, fled to two large caves some months ago bringing with them whatever furniture they could carry as well as twelve holy scrolls, the report disclosed. In their mountain retreat the Jews established primitive synagogues where many of them spent their days praying and studying the Talmud.
Friendly peasants in the neighborhood supplied the cave-dwellers with food and shielded them from the police bands that scour the mountains hunting fugitive Jews. Eventually, however, a raiding party discovered the Jews’ hiding place and the peasants who had aided the fugitives were arrested, according to the report, for their failure to inform the police of the hidden community. The Jews were immediately loaded into freight cars bound for Poland.
Another report reaching here today from Bratislava discloses that a registration of the few thousand Jews still remaining in Slovakia has been ordered. It was indicated that the new registration was a prelude to further anti-Jewish legislation.
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.
