Ministry of Defence commemorates the tragic anniversary of the first deportation transport out of Slovakia in WW2

Representing the Ministry of Defence in a ceremony at the Poprad Central Train Station on 24 March 2023, Secretary General of the MOD Service Office Peter Kozák commemorated the 81st anniversary of Jewish people being deported on the first transport out of Slovakia to the Auschwitz extermination camp.

In a statement, Secretary General of the MOD Service Office Peter Kozák said: “This reflection on the first deportation transport and the entire Nazi killing machinery is a reminder of the undemocratic regime’s destruction of what is most precious – human lives. We vow never to forget this tragic period of our history. May we never repeat the mistakes that led to this tragedy!”

On 25 March 1945, about 1,000 young Jewish girls and women from Slovakia's Šariš-Zemplín counties were herded into cattle wagons on a deportation transport that departed from the Poprad train station at about 8:20pm to Auschwitz. Of them, only some 20 young girls survived internment in the death camp. The Nazi regime killed over 70,000 Jewish citizens of Slovakia, de facto decimating the entire Jewish minority in the country.