In 1944 and 1945, 13,500 Jews were deported to Auschwitz (8,000 deportees), with smaller numbers sent to the Sachsenhausen, Ravensbrück, Bergen-Belsen, and Theresienstadt concentration camps.

In the political crisis that followed the September 1938 Munich Agreement,[1] the conservative, ethnonationalist Slovak People’s Party[2][3] unilaterally declared a state of autonomy for Slovakia within Czechoslovakia.

Many Jews lost their jobs and property due to Aryanization, which resulted in large numbers of them becoming impoverished.

Slovakia initially agreed with the German government to deport 20,000 Jews of working age to German-occupied Poland, paying Nazi Germany 500 Reichsmarks each (supposedly to cover the cost of resettlement).

[10][11] The SS officer and Judenberater (adviser on Jewish issues) Dieter Wisliceny and Slovak officials promised that deportees would not be mistreated and would be allowed to return home after a fixed period.

[23][28] Before its departure, Wisliceny spoke to the deportees on the platform, saying that they would be allowed to return home after they finished the work that Germany had planned for them.

[29] Most of the Slovak Jewish women deported to Auschwitz in 1942 who survived the war were from the first two transports in March, because they were younger and stronger.

He and Vojtech Tuka agreed that further deportations would target whole families and eventually remove all Jews from Slovakia.

Beatings and forcible beard shaving were commonplace, as was subjecting Jews to invasive searches to uncover hidden valuables.

[45] Although some guards and local officials accepted bribes to keep Jews off the transports, the victim would typically be deported on the next train.

[51] Unusually, the deportees in the Lublin area were quickly able to establish contact with the Jews remaining in Slovakia, which led to extensive aid efforts.

[15][54] (Another few thousand Slovak Jews were deported to Majdanek following the liquidation of ghettos in the Lublin district, but most of them were murdered immediately.

[95] The deportees were held briefly in camps in Slovakia before deportation; 26,384 from Žilina,[24] 7,500 from Patrónka,[22] 7,000 from Poprad,[23] 4,160[96] (or 4,463)[97] from Sereď, and 4,000 to 5,000 from Nováky.

[98] Eighteen trains with 18,746 victims[42] went to Auschwitz, and another thirty-eight transports (with 39,000 to 40,000 deportees)[a] went to ghettos and concentration and extermination camps in the Lublin district.

[107] Einsatzgruppe H, one of the SS death squads, was formed to deport or murder the estimated 25,000 Jews remaining in Slovakia.

[108] Einsatzgruppe H was aided by local collaborators, including SS-Heimatschutz, Abwehrgruppe 218, and the Hlinka Guard Emergency Divisions.

[109][110] Most of the Jews who were exempted from the 1942 deportations lived in western Slovakia,[111] but following the invasion many fled to the mountains.

[119] On four transports from Sereď, selections were carried out at the camp with different cars being directed to Sachsenhausen, Bergen-Belsen, Ravensbrück, and/or Theresienstadt.

[117] Many details of the transports are unknown, because much of the documentation was destroyed by the perpetrators, requiring historians to rely on survivor testimonies.

[113] The mortality rate was highest on the transports to Auschwitz in September and October, because there was a selection and most of the deportees were immediately murdered in the gas chambers.

[134] The high death rate at concentration camps such as Sachsenhausen, Bergen-Belsen and Ravensbrück was due to the exploitation of forced labor for total war and inmates were murdered based on their inability to work, rather than their race or religion.

[135] Between several hundred[107] and 2,000[116][136] Jews were killed in Slovakia, and about 10,850 survived to be liberated by the Red Army in March and April 1945.