During the Holocaust, most of Slovakia's Jewish population was deported in two waves—in 1942 and in 1944–1945. In 1942, there were two destinations: 18,746 Jews were deported in eighteen transports to Auschwitz concentration camp and another 39,000–40,000 were deported in thirty-eight transports to Majdanek and Sobibór extermination camps and various ghettos in the Lublin district of the General Governorate. A total of 57,628 people were deported; only a few hundred returned. 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. Altogether, these deportations resulted in the deaths of around 67,000 of the 89,000 Jews living in Slovakia.
Background
In the political crisis that followed the September 1938 Munich Agreement, the conservative, ethnonationalist Slovak People’s Party unilaterally declared a state of autonomy for Slovakia within Czechoslovakia. Slovak Jews, who numbered 89,000 in 1940, were targeted for persecution. In November 1938, 7,500 Jews (impoverished or without Slovak citizenship) were deported to the Hungarian border. Although they were allowed to return within a few months, these deportations were a rehearsal for those to follow in 1942.
On 14 March 1939, the Slovak State declared independence with German support. Many Jews lost their jobs and property due to Aryanization, which resulted in large numbers of them becoming impoverished. This became a pressing social problem for the Slovak government, which it "solved" by deporting the unemployed Jews. 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). However, this was only the first step in the deportation of all Jews, because deporting workers while leaving their families behind would worsen the economic situation of the remaining Jews.
In the meantime, Nazi Germany had been working towards the Final Solution—the murder of all the Jews that it could reach. In 1939, the Lublin District in German-occupied Poland was set aside as a "Jewish reservation". In 1942 it became a reception point for Jews from Nazi Germany and Slovakia. Starting in late 1941, the Schutzstaffel (SS) began planning for the deportation of the Jews in Lublin to the Operation Reinhard death camps—Bełżec, Sobibór and Treblinka—to free up space for the Slovak and German Jews.
1942
Initial phase
The original deportation plan, approved in February 1942 by the German and Slovak governments, entailed the deportation of 7,000 single women aged 16–35 to Auschwitz and 13,000 single men aged 16–45 to Majdanek as forced laborers. The cover name for the operation was Aktion David. 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. Initially, many Jews believed that it was better to report for deportation than risk reprisals against their families for failing to do so. However, 3,000 of the 7,000 women who were supposed to be deported refused to report as ordered. Methods of escape included sham marriages, being sent away to live with relatives, or being hidden temporarily by non-Jews. The Hlinka Guard struggled to meet its targets; as a result, only 3,800 women and 4,500 men were deported during the initial phase of deportations. Nevertheless, they opened "a new chapter in the history of the Holocaust" because the Slovak women were the first Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz. Their arrival precipitated the conversion of the camp into an extermination camp.
Department 14, a subsidiary of Slovakia's Central Economic Office, organized the transports, while the Slovak Transport Ministry provided the cattle cars. Members of the Hlinka Guard, the Freiwillige Schutzstaffel (FS) and the gendarmerie were in charge of rounding up the Jews, guarding the transit centers, and eventually loading them into overcrowded cattle cars for deportation. Transports were timed to reach the Slovak border near Čadca at 04:28. In Zwardon at 08:30, the Hlinka Guard turned the transports over to the German . The transports would arrive in Auschwitz the same afternoon and at Majdanek the next morning.