VADKERTY, Madeline. People Writing Letters on the Jewish Question to President Jozef Tiso (from 1939 – to 1944)

Thousands of ordinary people wrote to then President Jozef Tiso about the so-called "Jewish question" between 1939 and 1944. Not previously studied, this correspondence is in the records of the Office of the President of Republic at the Slovak National Archive in Bratislava. The letters reveal key information about the nature and scope of anti-Semitic persecution by the Slovak State and brings victims' perspectives into the historical narrative. Most of the letters were requests from Jews who were desperate for presidential exemptions from anti-Jewish legislation. Their petitions represented an attempt to exercise some agency at a time when their universe of options was inexorably shrinking. This article explains who wrote to Tiso and why, how the requests were processed and the fates of those who turned to Tiso for mercy.