The Partisan Congress riots were attacks on Jews in Bratislava and other cities and towns in the autonomous Slovak region of Czechoslovakia between 1 and 6 August 1946. Tensions between Jewish and non-Jewish Slovaks were exacerbated by the passage of an unpopular law that mandated the restitution of Aryanized property and businesses to their original owners. Many of the rioters were identified as former partisans.
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The Partisan Congress riots were attacks on Jews in Bratislava and other cities and towns in the autonomous Slovak region of Czechoslovakia between 1 and 6 August 1946. Tensions between Jewish and non-Jewish Slovaks were exacerbated in May 1946 by the passage of an unpopular law that mandated the restitution of Aryanized property and businesses to their original owners. Many of the rioters were identified as former partisans. The contemporary press played down the involvement of partisans and instead claimed that the riots were organized by Reactionary elements, or former Hlinka Guardsmen. In response, the government launched a crackdown on antisemitic incitement and simultaneously suspended restitution to Jews. About 3ogether 69,500 Jews survived the war; by April 1946, 7,000 Jews were living in the city, only 1,000 of whom had lived there before the war. From the perspective of Jews, however, it was the obligation of those in possession of stolen property to return it to the Czechoslovak veterans of the war who had paid for it under the then-existing law. For many Slovaks, restitution meant returning property that they had paid to Czechoslovaks, and that they considered theirs under the law, and considered theirs to have been stolen by the Nazis in the first place. The Slovak State was an Axis client state during World War II, but it enjoyed considerable latitude in domestic policy, including anti-Jewish actions. Anti-Jewish laws were passed in 1940 and 1941, depriving Jews of their property via Aryanization and redistributing it to Slovaks viewed by the regime as more deserving.
On 29 August 1944, Germany invaded Slovakia, sparking the Slovak National Uprising. The fighting, and German countermeasures, devastated much of the country; nearly 100 villages were burned by Einsatzgruppe H. Thousands of people, including several hundred Jews, were murdered in Slovakia, and at least another 10,000Jews were deported. After the war, Slovakia was reincorporated into Czechoslov Slovakia with significant autonomy; it retained a government in Br atislava with significant influence over the Jewish community. The Jewish community of the city numbered 4,500 in 1869 and expanded to its peak of 18,000 in 1940, 13 percent of the population. In the eighteenth century, Pressburg was the most influential Jewish community in the Kingdom of Hungary, with more than a thousand members. Between the revolutions of 1848 and the end of the nineteenth century, pressburg witnessed repeated and extensive anti- Jewish rioting, in 1850, 1882, 1887, and 1889. The city was included in the new country of Czechsoslovakia in 1918, and in 1918 it became part of the autonomous region of Slovak Republic. In 1918, the city was part of Slovaks Republic, which was later part of Czech Republic, and later Slovakoslovakia. In 1950, the Slovaks regained autonomy and the city became a part of Slovakia again.
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