On September 6, 2006, two months after I assumed office as Speaker, the Slovak Parliament adopted Common Declaration of the National Council of the Slovak Republic on the Occasion of the Commemoration Day of the Victims of Holocaust and Racial Violence and Against Manifestations of Extremism and Intolerance – a strongly worded political document in support of ethnic tolerance and peaceful coexistence in Europe. All this is vital to underscore before addressing the concerns expressed in your letter.
When the National Council of the Slovak Republic decided to approve the law honoring Andrej Hlinka it did so after careful deliberation during which his entire life and work were weighed in a facts-based historical retrospect. It was passed by a constitutional majority of 94 votes, with the leaders of all political parties represented in parliament, including those in opposition, voting for the motion. The only exception were Magyar Coalition Party MPs who voted against the bill (Andrej Hlinka fought fierce and at times brutal Magyarization of Slovaks in Great Hungary. That systematic Magyarization was the worst plague peoples of Central Europe were exposed to in the 19th and early 20th century, affecting all non-Magyar nationalities ruled by Budapest and leading to the eventual demise of Great Hungary after World War I).
Andrej Hlinka died in August 1938. He had nothing to do whatsoever with the wartime Guards that decided to misuse his name – an unfortunate move he could do absolutely nothing about since he already lay dead in his grave at the time of their forming. During his entire life Hlinka stood firm against Nazism and Communism, publically calling Adolf Hitler a “cultural beast” as soon as he saw what kind of oppressive regime the dreaded Nazi leader installed after he had come to power in Germany. Equally important from the point of view of your concerns is the fact that the Jewish community of the time spoke positively about Hlinka, even calling him “a great figure” in the Jewish Newspaper (Židovské noviny) shortly after his passing. The local Jews appreciated especially the peaceful coexistence of Christians and members of the Jewish community in the city of Ružomberok at the time when Hlinka served as Catholic priest in that Slovak city, adding in the Jewish Newspaper that he “held in esteem and honored his Jewish fellow citizens while spreading as a priest the spirit of religious tolerance”.
Another proof of Hlinka’s positive attitude toward Slovak Jews was his decision to ask two Jewish attorneys – Dr. Biheller and Dr. Hiller – to act as his defense lawyers during his trial before a Magyar court. Hlinka’s personal trust in Slovak Jews was reciprocated. When a petition was sent in 1909 to the ruling monarch calling for Hlinka to be released from jail it was signed by all the Jews living in the city of Ružomberok. The nature of Hlinka’s personal attitude toward Jews on a political level is apparent from the words he said to the then Vice-president of the Jewish Party Dr. Matej Weiner during their meeting in August 1936, three years after Hitler came to power: “I am no enemy of the Jews. The political party I lead is not anti-Semitic. Anti-Semitism is not our political agenda. As a catholic priest I am fully aware of the great moral, religious, and historical significance of Jewry for the entire civilized humankind, especially for the Christians”. These words had been quoted also by the foreign press of the period. Newspapers hostile to Hlinka, however, accused him of being friends with the Jews. 2/3
Zdroj telegram
