A memorial plaque at the Poprad railway station commemorates the first deportation of Slovak Jews which departed from there to Auschwitz.

Poprad, about 1942, Railway station used for deportations, Múzeum SNP


Poprad, 2004, Memorial plaque to the Jewish girls deported from Poprad station, Stiftung Denkmal

Poprad, a city at the foot of the High Tatra Mountains, had been home to a small Jewish community since the late 19th century. In 1938, Jozef Tiso's Slovak People's Party came to power, and established a dictatorship in the newly-formed Slovak State in 1939. The Slovak government began to systematically persecute the Jews residing in Slovakia. They were excluded from all public life, their property was confiscated and many were deployed in forced labour. In 1942, Slovakia began deporting Jews to ghettos and concentration camps in German-occupied Poland. This was conducted in close coordination with the German authorities. Most of the transports departed from the Poprad railway station. The first transport of about 1,000 Jewish girls and young women left Poprad on March 25, 1942 for Auschwitz-Birkenau. By the end of the year, when the transports were halted, over 58,000 Jews had been deported from Slovakia to Poland. The deportations were continued in the autumn of 1944 after the suppression of the Slovak National Uprising. In all, about 70,000 Jews were deported from Slovakia.

Poprad, about 1942, Railway station used for deportations, Múzeum SNP


Poprad, 2004, Memorial plaque to the Jewish girls deported from Poprad station, Stiftung Denkmal

The memorial plaque is dedicated to the approximately 1,000 girls and young women who were deported in trains of the Slovak Railway from Poprad to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and murdered there by the SS. A total of 75,000 Slovak Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, most of them in the concentration and extermination camps situated in occupied Poland and operated by the SS.

Poprad, 1942, Jews being deported from Poprad station, Múzeum SNP


Poprad, 2004, Former Synagogue, Stiftung Denkmal

In 1992, a memorial plaque was mounted on one of the walls of the former Poprad synagogue, which had been built in 1906. In 2002, on the 60th anniversary of the first deportation, a new memorial plaque on the railway station building was unveiled. It had been commissioned by the Jewish Museum in Bratislava with the support of the Slovak ministry of culture. A memorial ceremony is held at the railway station each year on March 25.

Name

Pamätník Poprad

Address

Ulica J. Wolkera
058 01 Poprad

Phone

+421 2 59 34 91 42

Fax

+421 2 59 34 91 45

Web

http://www.snm.sk

E-Mail

mzk@snm.sk

Open

The memorial plaque is accessible at all times.