Atrocities in the borderland: anti-Semitic violence in eastern Slovakia (1945–1946)

Abstract

ABSTRACT The principal aim of this paper is to focus on various acts of collective anti-Semitic violence which were committed in eastern Slovakia and have not yet been adequately studied in the Slovak historiography. The territory in question represented a borderland or periphery far from Prague and Bratislava, where the new state was asserting its authority slowly and inefficiently. Moreover, this region was suffering from extraordinary critical social and economic conditions because it had suffered more damages due to the war than any other region in the country. These circumstances created a space in which it was difficult for the state to curb violence and in which anti-Semitic sentiments were likely to erupt into violence. This essay focuses on these kinds of incidents. I examine the selected incidents which culminated in physical violence from the perspectives of the perpetrators. I attempt to contextualize their motives, the impulses which prompted them to act, and the points at which sentiment changed into act. I also attempt to problematize the role of anti-Semitism in their efforts to legitimize their acts. I examine cases of mass killings in Kolbasov, a local demonstration in Trebišov, partisans´ racially motivated hostility as exemplified by correlated cases in Bardejov and Prešov.