Deportácie Židov zo Spiša v septembri 1944: K začiatkom a chronológii druhej vlny deportácií Židov zo Slovenska

Abstract

SCHVARC, Michal – HLAVINKA, Ján. The Deportation of Jews from Spiš in September 1944. On the Beginning and Chronology of the Second Wave of Deportation of Jews from Slovakia. Historický časopis, 2021, 69, 4, pp. 677–692, Bratislava. On 31 August 1944, when not particularly large Wehrmacht units occupied Kežmarok and disarmed the Slovak forces there, it was clear that northern Spiš would not succeed in joining the Slovak National Uprising. Instead, the German units began to establish an occupation regime, which enabled the arrival of quickly formed Security Police and Security Service units during the night from 31 August to 1 September 1944. The present of the Einsatzkommando “Ostslowakei”, later renamed zbV-Kommando 27, meant an acute threat to the lives of the group most proscribed by the National Socialists: the Jews. In close cooperation with the radicals from the ranks of the local Germans, they immediately launched a wave of arrests of the remnants of the Jewish community of Kežmarok and its surroundings, their imprisonment and deportation to the Płaszów concentration camp, where the camp personnel killed most of the internees immediately after their arrive. Analysis of these events indicates that the chronology of the second wave of deportation of Jews from Slovakia as researched and accepted up to now, is not entirely accurate. There were already deportations from the territory of Slovakia during the first 20 days of September 1944. In the study, we aim not only to describe this process, but also to map the further fate of the interned and deported persons. We also direct attention to the people involved in the persecution, namely the members of the Einsatzkommando “Ostslowakei” and the German home guard: “Heimatschutz”. We also devote attention to the question of criminal proceedings concerning these crimes, both in post-war Czechoslovakia and in the German Federal Republic.

Keywords

• kežmarok
• deportations
• sicherheitspolizei
• ethnic germans
• płaszów