HOLOCAUST IN SEČOVCE

Slovakia became an independent state, a satellite and part of the Fascist regime of Nazi Germany, in March, 1939.

Jews were gradually removed from the social and economic life of the country, with many without any means of livelihood. Jewish men were compelled into forced labor within the framework of the military 6^th Battalion. Jewish children were expelled from the public schools and Jewish businesses were closed down by the authorities.

In 1940, the Jewish population of Sečovce was 1,138 (26.6%) out of a total of 4,274 residents.

The expulsion of the Jews of Slovakia began at the end of March, 1942. On 2 Apr 1942, Jewish girls and young women from Sečovce were deported to Auschwitz. Some of the young men of the town escaped to Hungary. On 5 May, 300 Jews from the town and 250 from neighboring areas were transported to the ghettos and death camps in the Lublin district of Poland, where they were murdered. Overall, 1,040 Jews were deported from the Trebisov district, most of them residents of Sečovce. This represents roughly 85% of all the local Jews deported in 1942. Virtually all of them perished. The remaining 15% were evacuated to western Slovakia in May of 1944. The only ones who remained were those whose work was deemed essential by the authorities, those who were married to non-Jews, and a few who managed to hide. In the summer of 1944, some of the Jews who were still in the town joined the partisans in revolt. When the Germans entered Slovakia to put down the revolt, the Jews with the partisans escaped to the forests near Banska Bystrica.

The town was liberated on 2 Dec 1944 by Red Army troops. After the war, in 1945, some 30 families of survivors returned to the town, but by 1949 most of the survivors had left for Israel, the United States, and elsewhere. By the 1950s, no Jews remained in Sečovce.

Necrology in the Sečovce Yizkor book