Tyler History Center to host new exhibit

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

“The Tragedy of Slovak Jews,” an exhibit on the Holocaust in Slovakia that was curated by the National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, will be on display from April 30 through May 31 at the Tyler History Center, 325 W. Federal St. The Mahoning Valley Historical Society, the American Slovak Cultural Association of the Mahoning Valley, and the Center for Judaic and Holocaust Studies at Youngstown State University are the primary sponsors of the exhibit.

Rebekah Klein-Pejsova, a trained scholar of Slovak and Jewish history from Purdue University, will present a lecture at the exhibit’s opening event at 6 p.m. April 30. The event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.

In preparation for the exhibit, the Center for Judaic and Holocaust Studies will screen “The Shop on Main Street” (Czechoslovakia, 1965) at 5 p.m. Monday in the Knox Building, 110 W. Federal St. The center director, Jacob Ari Labendz, will lead a discussion after the film. That event is also free and open to the public.

Slovakia, under the leadership of Jozef Tiso, was the only country that paid Germany to deport its Jewish citizens. After the passage of anti-Jewish legislation, Slovak fascist forces gathered almost 60,000 Jews in ghettos and work camps and delivered them to the Nazis.

By the end of the war, more than 67 percent of the 85,950 Jews who lived in Slovakia had been killed. The non-Jewish population responded by aiding their Jewish compatriots; others profited from confiscated Jewish properties; and many did nothing at all. There are only a few thousand Jews living in Slovakia today.

The Tyler History Center is open from noon to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Admission is $7 for adults, $6 for seniors (60 and older) and college students and $5 for children. Admission includes a same-day visit to The Arms Family Museum, 648 Wick Ave. For information, visit www.mahoninghistory.org.