„NAŠI ÚBOHÍ ŽIDOVSKÍ BRATIA”. ŠVÉDSKE SNAHY O ZÁCHRANU ŽIDOV NA SLOVENSKU POČAS II. SVETOVEJ VOJNY.

The article describes a largely unknown Swedish effort to intervene in deportations of Jews in Slovakia between 1942 and 1944. Swedish officials and religious leaders used their diplomatic correspondence with the Slovak government to extract some Jewish individuals and later on the whole Jewish community of Slovakia from deportations by their government and eventually by German officials. Despite the efforts of Swedish Royal Consulate in Bratislava, the Swedish Archbishop Erling Eidem, and the Slovak Consul Bohumil Pissko in Stockholm, and despite the acts taken by some Slovak ministries, the Slovak officials including the President of Slovak republic Jozef Tiso revoked further negotiations in autumn 1944. However, the negotiations between Slovakia and Sweden created a scope of actions to protect some Jewish individuals which were doomed to failure due to the political situation. Nevertheless, this plan and the previous diplomatic interventions are significant to describe the almost unknown Swedish and Slovak efforts to save the Jews of Slovakia. Repeated Swedish offers to take in Jewish individuals and later the whole community would have likely prepared the way for larger rescues. These never occurred due to the Slovak interest in deporting its own Jewish citizens and later due to the German occupation of Slovakia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]