Slovakia

From Jewish Heritage Europe >> Good news from Slovakia. Work is progressing on the restoration of the modernist Neolog synagogue in Zilina as part of a project that will transform it into a cultural space. In January, at a ceremony in Munich, the restoration project was presented the 2013 Bauwelt Advancement Award from the German architectural magazine Bauwelt. Funding for the €1 million project remains a problem, however, and the project’s informative web site also includes a break-down of financing sources and PayPal and other means by which people can donate. The synagogue, built in 1928-1931 and designed by the more »

From The Slovak Spectator >> The history of the Second World War consists not only of the tragic destiny of Jews who did not survive Nazi persecution, but also of the stories of those who were not afraid to help save the lives of Jewish people. On January 30, six Slovaks received the Righteous Among the Nations title, given each year by the State of Israel and the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial to people of non-Jewish origin. “When many closed their minds to humanity and shut their hearts from the suffering that could easily have befallen them, there the righteous more »

From the JTA Slovakia sent a train from its Poprad station to Auschwitz to commemorate the first transport of Slovak Jews, in 1942. Edita Grosmanova, a Slovak-Jewish concentration camp survivor, and outgoing Prime Minister Iveta Radicova were among the passengers on last Friday’s train ride to Oswiecim, Poland, according to Slovak news reports. Some 1,000 Slovak Jewish women were sent to Auschwitz on March 25, 1942. Grosmanova is the widow of the author Ladislav Grosman, whose book “The Shop on Main Street” was turned into an Academy Award-winning film in 1965 for best foreign-language film. “If I were talking for more »

From Delet – Slovak-Jewish Magazine Another 17 Slovaks will be awarded with the title ‘Righteous among the Nations’, which is given to non-Jews who helped save the lives of Jewish people during WWII, the Israeli Embassy informed media. The ceremonial award-giving organised by the State of Israel and Jerusalem-based memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust Yad Vashem will take place on February 1 in the historical building of the Slovak Parliament and will be attended by Slovakia’s top constitutional representatives. Relatives of the awardees will receive a medal and a honorary diploma from Israeli Ambassador to Slovakia Alexander more »

By Ruth Ellen Gruber, published in The Jerusalem Post Click here for the original article In 1989, on the eve of the fall of communism, the American poet Jerome Rothenberg published a powerful series of poems called “Khurbn” that dealt with the impact of the Holocaust on Eastern Europe. In one section, he recorded conversations he had had in Poland with local people who had little recollection of the flourishing pre-war Jewish presence. “Were there once Jews here?” the poem goes. “Yes, they told us, yes they were sure there were, though there was no one here who could remember. more »