202
PARTISAN REVIEW
"internationalism going on there"?
These items would be easy
to
miss if you wanted to, or, if you pre–
ferred, easy to explain. But the Sterns were worried about the future be–
cause their future is in Slovakia, which was about to become Europe's
newest nation. They are concerned because the Slovakian state of 1993 is
the second attempt at Slovakian nationhood. The first was as a Nazi col–
laborationist state under the reactionary priest Monsignor Josef Tiso.
Since the fall of Communism in November 1989, both religion and na–
tionalism have reemerged. The supporters of an independent Slovak state
have seesawed between assurances that the new state would be nothing
like the last one and persistent efforts
to
rehabilitate the name of Tiso be–
cause he led a Slovak state. Juraj Stern can remember the last Slovak state.
He was a small child and his memories come in brief clips. Hiding in a
bunker, covered with potatoes. Someone shooting through the potatoes.
Little thwacks around him as the bullets missed. All the good Slovaks who
hid him. All the bad ones who pursued him. He thinks more and more
about those times as he begins to see things that he hasn ' t seen since his
childhood. Walls in Bratislava occasionally now have slogans on them
such as "Jews go to Palestine" and "Gas the Jews ."
Three weeks before 1 talked to Juraj he had been at a soccer game;
Bratislava against Budapest. People shouted the old fascist cheer "Na
Straz! [Attention']" In the crowd, among an occasional anti-Semitic slo–
gan, he saw two flags of the Guardists, the Slovakian SS. "Weare worried
about it because the new government is doing nothing against them.
They [the government] are occupied with the problems of building an
independent state," said Juraj. He is an economist, specializing in the or–
ganization of factory production, and the vice chancellor of the eco–
nomics school at the University of Bratislava. But you do not need to be a
distinguished economist to see Slovakia 's dilemma. The country does not
produce enough to support its population and has been living like a poor
relation on the earnings of the Czechlands. Now it will be an orphan in a
hostile world. Before its independence, Slovakia had already gotten into a
major dispute with neighboring Hungary over a proposed dam on the
Slovakian Danube.
Zuzana is a research engineer. At an office party she was talking to
someone whose husband was involved with building the new Slovak
state. The woman told Zuzana that there was no reason to be worried.
"I am afraid for lI1y children," Zuzana explained.
The woman smiled and said, "Why are you afraid? I'm not afraid.
Why are you afraid for your children?"
Zuzana said, "You are not worrying because your children are not
Jews."
