Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/160

 other nationalities of Hungary struggled bitterly against it.

As a race the Jews are extremists. On the one side they are the greatest radicals and the most idealist reformers in politics and religion; on the other side one finds among them the greatest supporters of the existing order, of reaction and oppression. In Hungary the greatest champion of the oppressed nationalities was a Magyar Jew, Oscar Jaszy, who after the disruption of the Austro-Hungarian Empire became the minister of nationalities in Karolyi’s cabinet. No real Magyar dared or cared to say the truth about the futility of the Magyarizing policy as plainly and as forcibly as did Jaszy. But Jaszy is only one among hundred thousands. In every Slovak village there was a Jew, generally the inn-keeper and rumseller, who was the most faithful henchman of the old rotten government. He was instrumental in swinging the votes for the government candidate; he was in collusion with the local officials, the petty tyrants and veritable leeches on the body of the peasants. He was the most chauvinistic Magyar of the entire village, openly flouting his loyalty to the hated government. He never lost an opportunity to spy upon the talk of the people and report their sentiments to the authorities. Many a cruel persecution, many a death resulted out of his spying. And the Slovak peasants knew it.

The fact that most of the commerce of Hungary was in Jewish hands and that naturally among the Jewish merchants were found many unscrupulous profiteers, added greatly to the gravity of the situation after the revolution. There seems to be no doubt that in the first days after the ending of Magyar rule Jewish shops were plundered by the hungry population; not because the owners were Jews, but because they had sided with the hated regime and because it was known that many shopkeepers had stored great quantities of food for speculative purposes. Undoubtedly some innocent men were unjustly maltreated; who can reason with a hungry and excited crowd? What so many individual Jews had done to the detriment of the people among whom they lived was now, in the hour of reckoning, charged against the entire race. The Slovaks do not hate the Jews as such, but only as the willing instruments and agents of that barbarous government which had for years bled the Slovaks white and tried to stab them to death, when the end came. There were a few good men among the Jews in Slovakia, men who sympathized with the Slovak struggle to preserve their national individuality. Such men were respected and called “Our Jews” by the peasantry. Neither would it be fair to create the impression that the Jews alone took part in the Slovak persecution. The greatest culprits of the old regime were the petty Magyar officials, the district prefects and the local notaries, and in many cases Magyarized Slovaks, such as lawyers, priests, teachers and merchants. The renegade is always more cruel than the foreigner.

The real offense of the Slovak Jews was their utter lack of sympathy with the aspirations of the oppressed race and their active support of the immoral regime aiming at the extinction of everything that was not Magyar. While there were noble individuals among the Jews in Slovakia, as an organized body they never raised their voices in protest against the war on nationalities in Hungary. One finds it difficult to understand, why the Jew has so little sympathy with the oppressed of other races and yet is so keenly concerned in the unhappy lot of his own people in any part of the world. When there is an injustice done to the Jews anywhere in the world, the four corners of the earth hear about it on the same day. Yet the Jews in Austria-Hungary had never a word to say about the oppression to which their Slav neighbors were subject under their very eyes.

The disorders in Slovakia lasted only a few days, and no Jew lost his life as a result of them. The Slovak is not revengeful, and the Czechoslovak government had the situation well in hand a few days after the expulsion of the Magyar authorities. Order is fully restored and no one who lives peacefully is molested. The Slovaks are ready to bury the unpleasant memories of the old regime. Let the Jew convince his Slovak neighbor that he is with him sincerely and for good, and he will be treated as fairly as any other citizen. There existss [sic] no desire to curb the Jew by special enactments or restrictions. If the Jewish inhabitants of Slovakia will identify themselves with the Czechoslovak cause, if they will deal honestly with their customers, the peasants will live on the best terms with their Jewish fellow citizens.