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Ben Konisberg column
In November this year I spent 5 days in Slovakia.
I stayed with Arto Kohn an old pal from Kibbutz Ulpan. It was on Kibbutz that Arto told me the most extraordinary story I think I've ever heard.
During the Communist era in Czechoslovakia it was almost impossible to obtain any books on Judaism or Jewish culture. But Arto,(whose Jewish Father survived 3 Nazi concentration camps, but died in 1975 of a lung complaint caused by his time in them)was always hungry to learn something of his Jewish identity. His Mother - a Roman Catholic - could help little with this. But one day she managed to procure a book about the Jewish People from the black market. Arto was extremely excited to receive the prized gift but became less so as he read it.
"NO,NO,NO. IT'S NOT TRUE."
is how he describes his reaction - in his strongly accented English.
That book was "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion"
His Mother burnt it the same day.
I think about this story as I visit the Bratislava Jewish Museum on a freezing November morning.
"The formation of the Slovak state in Spring 1939 under the patronage of Berlin...finally led to the tragic end of the Jewish community in Slovakia" reads one inscription.
Unspeakable pain lies behind these words.
In 1938 there were 138,000 Jews in Slovakia. 108,000 were murdered in death camps.
There's a room that lists the names of all the Rabbis from Slovakia who died. Jewish music is softly piped in and it is as touching as the children's hall at Yad Vashem.
This raises the awkward question of Slovak collaboration during the war. Could a whole community be "destroyed" without a great deal of collaboration? One hundred and eight thousand people. Important, admirable, and vital as it is, the museum barely touches on this question.
During the course of my stay in Bratislava I only manage to find one book in English about Slovakia.
It gives Arto and myself much amusement. Although it's intended to promote Slovakia's great beauty and potential tourist appeal, it is actually an absurd tome containing ridiculous flourishes of overstated and hysterical patriotic hyperbole.
We learn that the Slovak language is "as pleasant as a breeze in May, as sweet as a baby comforted by its Mother" and "as nice as the smile of an innocent child".
However, beneath the book's ludicrous (irony free) surface, there lies a more sinister undercurrent.
At one point it states bluntly that Slovaks "don't need foreigners".
There is not one mention in this book of the word Jew. Even in the section dealing with the war. In fact there is not one positive word about anything that isn't Slovak or Christian.
That evening we visit the grave of the Chatam Sofer. He is a former chief Rabbi of Bratislava and is thought to have been the greatest Jewish scholar of the 19th century. This historic gravestone now enjoys special protection in its own Mausoleum.
It is part of a former Jewish cemetery dating back to the years 1670-1847.Bizarrely our own path to the grave is about as 1990's as you can get. Arto calls the mobile of the gravekeeper from his own mobile. The sturdy looking, grey-haired gravekeeper meets us there. The Chatam Sofer Mausoleum is picturesquely situated at the foothills of the Small Carpathian Mountains between the Danube and Bratislava's magnificent castle.
There are 23 graves and 41 separate tombstones in the Mausoleum.
Another spine-tingling twist is provided on Slovakia's vexed past and present when the gravekeeper shows us that one of the gravestones was recently vandalized by Neo Fascist "skins" who broke into the Mausoleum.
(Unsurprisingly these lowlife, knuckle scraping worms turned out not to be Talmudic experts, and left the Chatam Sofer's own resting place alone)..
I spend my final evening in Slovakia in a Kosher Restaurant. Despite Bratislava not really having a Jewish population, the palatial 'Chez David' seems to be a great success. We have to wait 10 minutes for a table. This huge Restaurant is buzzing with the chatter of newly wealthy Slovaks impressing foreign clients. For this is one of Bratislava's more expensive eateries and enjoys wonderfully friendly and helpful (English speaking) service. We spot only one table with (overtly) Jewish clientele.
The food itself turns out to be standard and average Kosher fare. No better or worse than (say) "Milk and Honey" in Golders Green High Rd. But the size of the portions and the prices are certainly not average.
Receiving the bill for a Kosher meal in London usually causes one's eyes not just to shoot out of one's head, but to oscillate on the plate, and perform a gymnastics display in the centre of the room for five minutes. Not so in Bratislava. It comes to around £6.00 for three of us.(And this is expensive by Slovak standards.)
I'm packing my suitcase when Arto's incredibly kind but Englishless 88-year-old Granny beckons me to her room. She shows me a photo on her wardrobe lit by candles.
"Arto Papa" she whispers.
Though she doesn't have to.
The resemblance between her son in law and grandson is touching if eerie.
He looks around 25 in the picture and I would guess that this was taken 5 years or so after he was liberated from Mauthhausen in 1945. Arto's Gran visibly holds back the tears as we peer at this photograph.
On the way to the airport Arto tells me that he recently saw the "Protocoli" being sold legally in Bratislava. We share a grim, dark, and very Jewish sense of humour which sometimes puts gags where tears belong.
So we make ironic jokes about this.
But we know it isn't funny.
It's been an enjoyable and worthwhile stay. Bratislava is a genuinely quaint and unspoiled city.
However the Holocaust rarely leaves my thoughts while I am in Slovakia. I can never forget that only 60 years ago in Bratislava's elegant 'Old City' there was a thriving, bustling, black-hatted Jewish community.
And then there was "a tragic end."
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