Task Force For International Cooperation On Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research

Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research in Slovakia

For news about Holocaust education, remembrance and research in Slovakia, click here.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2012:

In Slovakia the 27 January is not commemorated on a wide scale at the national level, due to the fact that Slovakia established a national Holocaust memorial day in 2001, which is commemorated on 9 September.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Slovakia has commemorated the victims of the Holocaust and of racial violence on 9 September since 2001. It is called "The Memorial Day for Victims of the Holocaust and of Racial Violence".

The Slovak Parliament designated 9 September as the Remembrance Day, because on this day in 1941, the Slovak State of that time passed 290 repressive laws, the so-called Jewish Codex, with which the process of Jewish deportations was initialized and which resulted in the killings of over 70 000 Slovak Jews.

Official Commemorative Activities

"The Memorial Day for the Victims of the Holocaust and of Racial Violence" is always held under the auspices of the President of the Slovak Republic. It takes the form of laying of wreaths at the memorial of the victims of the Holocaust in Bratislava. The president and members of the government and of Parliament attend the event.  The Ministry of Culture and the Slovak National Museum - Museum of Jewish Culture are also involved in the event.

In the Parliament and in the schools, the day is observed by a minute of silence. Thematic exhibitions, cultural and educational events that commemorate this tragedy are also organized on this day.

Events held on a national level in 2012 for 27 January include:

In Košice, the second largest town in Slovakia, a commemorative event will be held on January 27 (http://spolok-kosice.webnode.sk/news/a27-01-2012). The document "The Whole World is a Narrow Bridge" dedicated to Jan Mozolak who saved 14 persecuted Jews will be shown as a part of the event.

On January 27, a commemorative event is held under auspices of the Ambassador of Israel in the Slovak Republic J.E. Alexander Ben-Zvi also in Piešťany (http://www.europapreobcanov.sk/kalendar/39/43-Pamiatka-obetiam-holokaustu/).

The Jewish Community of Komárno is holding a commemorative event on January 29, 2012 (http://kehreg.com/2012/01/22/pozvanka-meghivo-14). The lectures by Dr. Veronika Slneková, PhD. (Slovakia) on the Holocaust education and by Dr. Gábor Kádár (Hungary) on the Holocaust in Hungary will be part of the event.

On February 16, 2012 the Slovak National Museum - Museum of Jewish Culture together with the European Shoah Legacy Institute is opening the exhibition of the best posters resulting from the international poster competition on a theme of "Keeping the Memory Alive - Children in the Holocaust". The same exhibition will be displayed also in one of the Bratislava´s secondary grammar schools - Ladislav Sára Gymnasium.

Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

On 27 January the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic regularly issues a statement concerning the International Day of Commemoration to Honor the Victims of the Holocaust.

The ITF helps the Slovak Republic as well as the entire international community to remember and pay tribute to the victims of the Holocaust. I am pleased that the ITF family continues to expand and that more countries now spread the idea of Holocaust education, remembrance and research. Slovakia attaches great importance to its membership of the ITF, not least because four decades of Communism distorted the interpretation of historical facts, including the issue of the Holocaust. Various projects and programmes, implemented nowadays with the support of the ITF and other partners, contribute to and constitute a part of Holocaust remembrance.

After the renewal of democracy in Czechoslovakia, in December 1990 the Slovak Parliament and the Slovak Government issued a "Declaration on the deportation of Jews from Slovakia to concentration camps in 1942 and 1944". In the declaration, members of parliament and of the government, as representatives of Slovakia as a whole, showed their sympathy for those Jewish fellow citizens, expressed their regret for the crimes committed against them, and apologised for the acts of their predecessors.

After the declaration, memorials and memorial plaques dedicated to the memory of the Holocaust victims began to be unveiled throughout Slovakia from 1992 onwards (approximately 100 to date), including the Central Memorial to the Holocaust of Jews in Slovakia, erected in Bratislava in 1997 on the site where the Neological Synagogue originally stood. All memorials and memorial plaques are unveiled on the initiative of the Slovak Government, individual municipalities, Jewish communities, Ministry of Culture, the Slovak National Museum - Museum of Jewish Culture, non-governmental organisations and civil society.

In 2001 the Slovak Parliament dedicated a ‘Memorial Day to the Victims of the Holocaust and Racial Violence'. The day is in remembrance of 9th September 1941, when the government of the then Slovak State issued a decree, the so-called Jewish Codex, which marked the beginning of persecution of Jews in Slovakia. Many events are held every year on this occasion, such as the laying of wreaths at the Holocaust Memorial under the auspices of the President of the Slovak Republic, as well as conferences, seminars and lectures on the Holocaust, racial violence and Antisemitism.

NEWS: The Nation's Memory Institute, in cooperation with the Comenius University in Bratislava, specifically with the Department of General History of Faculty of Philosophy and with the Department of Legal History of Faculty of Law, is organizing a scientific conference called "Anti-Semitic Legislation in Slovakia and in Europe". This event will take place on September 8-9, 2011 in Bratislava on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of accepting the so-called Jewish Code (Order no. 198/1941 of the Slovak Code) about the legal status of Jews. Further conference details can be found by clicking here.

Education

After the President of the Slovak Republic signed the Stockholm Declaration in 2000, the Slovak Ministry of Education began to cooperate with the ITF on the international project entitled "Training of Secondary School Teachers for Holocaust Education".
Its goal was to train selected teachers of history and other social-studies subjects who teach the Holocaust in order to improve the quality of teaching in line with international standards, and provide tools for the development of better and more effective teaching texts and aids. In 2004, the first Slovak teaching aid was issued for secondary school teachers - an education packet entitled "Why we learn about the Holocaust" (textbook, exercise book, and videocassette) - for teaching on the subject.

The Holocaust is taught at all levels of the school system, including university. In primary and secondary schools, the Holocaust is not only an integral part of history classes, but also of civic and ethics education. The training of teachers in this field advances successfully also thanks to ITF support.
During 2000-2008, in cooperation with partners from Germany, Israel, the US and the Czech Republic, the Ministry of Education sent approximately 180 Slovak teachers to about 40 international events organised abroad.

In 2006, the Slovak Ministry of Education signed an agreement with the Holocaust Documentation Centre, a non-governmental organisation. Based on the agreement, the training activities for Slovak teachers are organised in cooperation with the Methodological-Pedagogical Centres in Slovakia. In cooperation with other organisations, the Holocaust Documentation Centre actively engages teachers and students in various projects devoted to the issue of the Holocaust.

It also prepares, in cooperation with expert trainers, various educational materials for teaching purposes. Since 2003, as initiated by the Slovak Ministry of Education, 9th September (National Holocaust remembrance day) is also commemorated in primary and secondary schools through meetings with Holocaust survivors, visits to memorial sites, exhibitions and discussions on the Holocaust, Antisemitism, racism and other themes.

Remembrance

Since 1994, the Bratislava Museum of Jewish Culture has been operating as a specialised museum within the framework of the Slovak National Museum. Its activities focus on developing spiritual and material Jewish culture and documenting the Holocaust in Slovakia. An important section of the permanent exhibition of the museum is the Holocaust Memorial Room with a symbolic gravestone built for all the unburied victims of the Holocaust. It includes a list of people who saved Jewish lives and hold the title "Righteous Among the Nations".

In 2005, the museum opened another permanent exhibition of the Holocaust located in the synagogue building of Nitra with the title "Fates of Slovak Jews". In September 2008 the museum assumed administrative responsibility for the five original buildings of the Sered labour and concentration camp. Upon reconstruction a new Museum of the Holocaust shall be created there, devoted to all collection centres in Slovakia and providing education regarding the Holocaust.

In the Museum of the Slovak National Uprising in Banska Bystrica, the permanent exhibition "Slovakia in the Anti-Fascist Resistance Movement of Europe 1939-1945" was created in 2004. In 2007, on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the beginning of deportation of Slovak Jews, the museum put together a touring exhibition which travelled to Slovak cities under the name "Wagon". The exhibition was contained in two railroad wagons similar to those used to transport Slovak Jews to the concentration camps.

Since 2002, there has been a permanent Slovak National Exhibition of the Holocaust at the State Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland called "The Tragedy of Slovak Jews". Apart from 9th September as a national Holocaust remembrance day, commemorative events regularly take place also on 25th March to remember the first Slovak transportation of young Jewish girls and women to Auschwitz, which took place in 1942 in Poprad.

Research

Since 1998 the Milan Simecka Foundation in cooperation with the Jewish Community in Slovakia and The Holocaust Documentation Centre has issued seven volumes of documents "Holokaust na Slovensku" (Holocaust in Slovakia). The group of editors - leading Slovak historians (Eduard Niznansky, Ivan Kamenec, Katarina Hradska and Igor Baka) have edited documents which cover almost all basic aspects of the history of anti-Jewish measures and policies in Slovakia 1939-1945.

Uncovered aspects of the edition of documents - the process of aryanisation of Jewish property and activities of the Slovak Jewish Council (including the activities of the so called illegal Working Group) are being prepared for publication. Apart from that The Holocaust Documentation Centre in cooperation with other organisations prepared several lectures, seminars and scientific events.
The Centre collaborates with university scientific workers and employees of scientific institutes of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Jewish Studies at the Comenius University in Bratislava; some Holocaust survivors also take active part in its work. It continues to archive research and create an electronic database - the list of Holocaust victims in Slovakia. It is also important to mention the activity of The Nation´s Memory Institute (Ustav pamati naroda) which published in December 2005 on its internet site the database of 10000 liquidated Jewish enterprises.

The first initiatives connected with remembrance of the Roma tragedy during the Second World War began in Slovakia at the beginning of the 1990s. The theme was taken up in particular by the Milan Simecka Foundation, which recorded testimony of Slovak Roma in addition to Jewish testimony under its project "Fates of those who survived" and in 2006 a publication "Roma and the Second World War" was issued.

In 2005, the Slovak National Museum and the civic association "In Minorita" implemented a project called "Ma bisteren!" (Don't Forget!). This project consists of an educational program for the youth, a touring exhibition on the Roma genocide, and the unveiling of memorial plaques in sites that are connected with the persecution of Roma. In total, seven memorial plaques were unveiled by the end of 2007.