‘Little’ Slovaks, Jews and the Others in Sečovce: Biography of a Town

Type: 
Seminar
Audience: 
Open to the Public
Building: 
Nador u. 15
Room: 
103
Wednesday, October 25, 2017 - 11:00am
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Date: 
Wednesday, October 25, 2017 - 11:00am to 1:00pm

This project traces the histories of the Holocaust in a particular microcosm of what was once a multiethnic town. It follows events in Sečovce in eastern Slovakia, during the Second World War and the aftermath. While focusing on Jewish-Gentile coexistence, the aim here is to write an inclusive biography of this little town, and thus contribute to what we know of the interplay between ethnicity and religion, center and periphery, and local and external influences in the Holocaust. Hence, while analyzing the elimination of Jews from the social and economic life of Sečovce, this project examines how language and practice of exclusion changed with regard to the Slovakian ‘newcomers’, the Hungarians, Ruthenians, as well the sizable Roma community. In short, whereas proving an in-depth reconstruction of events in a specific local setting, this project deconstructs how diversity becomes rejection – in Sečovce and elsewhere.