Writing for Their Lives: Ordinary People Petition Slovak President Jozef Tiso During the Holocaust

Between 1939 and 1944, thousands of Slovak Jews and non-Jews petitioned the most powerful person in the land, President Jozef Tiso, about the “Jewish question.” Whether the petitioner was a desperate Jew seeking mercy from antisemitic legislation, priests and pastors advocating on behalf of individual Jews, an aryanizer coveting Jewish property, or a non-Jewish spouse in a mixed marriage, this riveting and emotional correspondence testifies to an impending genocide. However, petitions have only recently received the attention they deserve.Studying this correspondence opens a unique window into the world of ordinary individuals during the Holocaust and how they coped with official antisemitism. The petitioners were unaware of the looming tragedy, but hindsight allows us to see signs of an impending genocide in the correspondence, learn how people spoke about Jews, and observe how local actors and communities responded to antisemitic persecution.What did people request and how did they try to persuade Tiso? Were they believable, or were their letters more akin to performances? How did the government react to the deluge of desperate requests it received? This book brings new information about Slovakia, a Nazi client state, into Holocaust literature by assessing the testimonial value of these entreaties. It uncovers critical facets of the Holocaust in Slovakia, including majority-minority relations, the postures of the country’s religious denominations, discourse formation, anti-Jewish persecution, and key domestic and international dynamics that culminated in the deportation of nearly 58,000 Jews in 1942. But most importantly, this book goes beyond the statistics and events, allowing the victims to be seen and heard, something that was denied to them in life. Read more