Unwillingly on the Road

Forced Jewish Migration at the Municipal Level in Slovakia (1939-1945)

Authors

  • Michala Lônčíková Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences, v. v. i.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.23777/SN.0321/ART_MLON01

Keywords:

forced migration, Jewish apartments, Jewish space, Dispersed ghetto, Slovakia

Abstract

Forced Jewish migration in the Slovak State (1939-1945) during World War II is usually seen from the perspective of the deportations to the Nazi concentration camps. In fact, unwilling migration trajectories of the persecuted Jews, even within the contemporary Slovak territory, were copying gradual development of the anti-Semitic policy and its direct consequences on the everyday Jewish life in the wartime period. Numerous members of the Jewish community had experienced forced – in some cases also multi-layered – displacement both at the municipal and inner-state level even before the first transport left from Slovakia to Auschwitz on 25th March 1942. Main aim of this paper is to analyse the trajectories of the forced Jewish migration at urban level, especially personal and spatial consequences of limiting the Jewish living space caused by the restriction to live in and rent apartments in designated zones such as in the localities re-named after Adolf Hitler and Andrej Hlinka, founder and first leader of the Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party.

Author Biography

Michala Lônčíková, Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences, v. v. i.

Michala Lônčíková is historian at the Institute of the Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences, v. v. i., currently participating as a researcher in the project “Genocide, Postwar Migration and Social Mobility: Entangled Experiences of Roma and Jews”. Her main research interest is the modern Jewish history in the 20th century, especially the Holocaust in Slovakia and its aftermath. She participated in the international comparative project on Post-WWII Anti-Semitic Pogroms in East and East Central Europe: Collective Violence and Popular Culture (Gerda Henkel Stiftung, 2015 – 2018). Since 2020 she is working at the Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Sciences and as such she is working as a researcher in the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI) project.

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Published

2021-12-10

How to Cite

Lônčíková, Michala. 2021. “Unwillingly on the Road: Forced Jewish Migration at the Municipal Level in Slovakia (1939-1945)”. S: I.M.O.N. Shoah: Intervention. Methods. Documentation. 8 (3):20-32. https://doi.org/10.23777/SN.0321/ART_MLON01.