Historical Context

Slovak Partisans
Slovak partisans were an anti-fascist militia formed immediately the creation of the First Slovak Republic in 1939, to fight against Nazis and their collaborators. Men and women both fought in the ranks of partisan units, as well as Jews and Christians alike. Slovak partisans had mixed loyalties as many were deeply nationalistic and wanted a to maintain an independent Slovak Republic free of fascism, while many others were socialists who forged strong links with the Soviet Union and Soviet partisans. Slovak partisans mainly carried out acts of sabotage. Their largest anti-Nazi military engagement was the Slovak National Uprising in 1944, in which Slovak partisans were aided by the Slovak Army and Soviet partisans. Jan Golian and Rudolf Viest generals in the Slovak Army, led the uprising, which was eventually crushed by the Germans and their Hungarian and Ukrainian collaborators.

Jewish brigades
Slovak Jewish partisans made outstanding accomplishments as members of all-Jewish groups. The most famous Slovak Jewish partisan unit was the Novaky Brigade, formed from the inmates of Novaky concentration camp. The Novaky brigade benefited from its strategic locale, as the camp was in a region populated by miners and farmers who had no sympathy for the pro-Nazi government. With the help of these friendly locals, the Novaky brigade made contacts with other partisans, and arranged to receive aid and weapons in the event of an armed uprising. In honour of their service to their country, 166 Jewish partisans were awarded the Order of the Slovak Uprising.

Jewish Slovakia
After World War I and the creation of Czechoslovakia in 1918, Jews had the right to declare themselves a separate nationality and prospered in industry and cultural life, holding more than one-third of all industrial investments. In 1919, the National Federation of Slovak Jews and the Jewish Party were established. In the 1929 elections, the Jewish Party won two seats in parliament. In addition, a Jewish newspaper, the "Jewish People's Paper", was first published in Bratislava on August 2, 1919. In the first national census in Czechoslovakia, carried out on February 15, 1921, 135,918 people registered as practicing Jews, and 70,522 declared themselves of Jewish nationality. In addition, there were 165 Orthodox and 52 Reform congregations in the country.

Slovak Jews were not divided from their neighbours by language. Language spoken in public related to shifting national boundaries, with Jews in towns that had been part of Hungary speaking more Hungarian and those always part of Slovakia speaking more Slovak. The anti Hungarian bias stems from the Slavs having been a conquered people and it became illegal to speak Hungarian in public on the streets. The myth that Jews divided themselves by language was perpetuated as a means to scapegoat Jews in order to foster hate actions and rob Jewish citizens of property and livelihood and eventually lives.

In the 1930s, antisemitic rioting and demonstrations broke out, incited by the Slovak People's Party. During the rioting, professional Jewish boxers and wrestlers took to the streets to defend their neighbourhoods from antisemitic gangs, and one of them, Imi Lichtenfeld, would later use his experiences to develop Krav Maga.[6]

The Holocaust
Some 5,000 Jews emigrated before the outbreak of World War II and several thousands afterwards (mostly to the British Mandate of Palestine), but most were killed in the Holocaust. After the Slovak Republic proclaimed its independence in March 1939 under the protection of Nazi Germany, the pro-Nazi regime of President Jozef Tiso, a Catholic priest, began a series of measures aimed against the Jews in the country, first excluding them from the military and government positions. The Hlinka Guard began to attack Jews, and the "Jewish Code" was passed in September 1941. Resembling the Nuremberg Laws, the Code required that Jews wear a yellow armband and were banned from intermarriage and many jobs. By 1940, more than 6,000 Jews had emigrated.  By October 1941, 15,000 Jews were expelled from Bratislava; many were sent to labor camps, including Sereď.

Originally, the Slovak government tried to make a deal with Germany in October 1941 to deport its Jews as a substitute for providing Slovak workers to help the war effort. The initial terms were for 20,000 young men aged 16 and older for forced labour, but the Slovak government was concerned that it would leave many aged, sick, or child Jews who would become a burden on the gentile population. A deal was reached where the Slovak Republic would pay 500 Reichmarks for each Jew deported, and in return, the Germans would deport entire families and promise that the Jews would never return. This was billed as a humanitarian measure that would keep Jewish families together; the Slovak fascist authorities claimed that they did not know that the Germans were systematically exterminating the Jews under its control. Some Jews were exempt from deportation, including those who had converted before 1939.

The deportations of Jews from Slovakia started on March 25, 1942.  Transports were halted on October 20, 1942. A group of Jewish activists known as the Working Group tried to stop the process through a mix of bribery and negotiation. However, some 58,000 Jews had already been deported by October 1942, mostly to the Operation Reinhard death camps in the General Government in occupied Poland and to Auschwitz. More than 99% of the Jews deported from Slovakia in 1942 were murdered in the concentration death camps.  Jewish deportations resumed on September 30, 1944, after German troops occupied the Slovak territory in order to defeat the Slovak National Uprising. During the German occupation, up to 13,500 Slovak Jews were deported, mostly to Auschwitz where most of them were gassed upon arrival.  Jews were also murdered in the transit camp in Sereď under the command of Alois Brunner, and about 2,000 were murdered in the Slovak territory by members of the Einsatzgruppe H and the Hlinka Guard Emergency Divisions.

Deportations continued until March 31, 1945 when the last group of Jewish prisoners was taken from Sereď to the Terezín ghetto. In all, German and Slovak authorities deported about 71,500 Jews from Slovakia; about 65,000 of them were murdered or died in concentration camps. The overall figures are inexact, partly because many Jews did not identify themselves, but one 2006 estimate is that approximately 105,000 Slovak Jews, or 77% of their prewar population, died during the war.

After World War II violence towards the remaining jewish population did not stop,  11 Jews were murdered by an unidentified UPA group in September 1945 in Kolbasov. and. In the Topoľčany pogrom 48 Jews were seriously injured. 13 anti-Jewish incidents called partisan pogroms took place 1–5 August 1946, the biggest one in Žilina, where 15 people were wounded.   Later the Slovak writer Karel František Koch argued that the anti-semitic incidents that he witnessed in Bratislava after the war were "not antisemitism, but something far worse—the robber’s anxiety that he might have to return Jewish property [stolen in the Holocaust], a view that has been endorsed by Czech-Slovak scholar Robert Pynsent.

After the war, the number of Jews in Slovakia was estimated to 25,000. Most of them decided to emigrate. In February 1948, Communist rule was established after 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état, lasting until November 1989 Velvet Revolution, and little or no Jewish life existed. Many Jews emigrated to Israel or the United States to regain their freedom of religion.  After 1989, and even with the peaceful breakup of Czechoslovakia and Slovak independence in 1993, there has been little resurgence in Jewish life.