Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on June 7, 2024

A selection of short feel-good stories from Slovakia.

Every week The Slovak Spectator brings you a selection of three short stories from across Slovakia from which pessimism and negativity are absent.

Otto imko, World War II veteran and former underground resistance fighter, recently celebrated his 100th birthday.

Born in Topoany, in western Slovakia, to a Jewish family, he first experienced as a boy the anti-Semitic regulations imposed by the emerging Nazi-allied Slovak State. He avoided deportation to a Nazi concentration camp, but was sent to a labour camp in the town of Vyhne, central Slovakia, in 1942. He then took part in the Slovak National Uprising (SNP). After being detained and undergoing brutal interrogations, he managed to escape from prison. Between 1954 and 1971, he worked as a journalist at the newspaper Smena; from 1971, under the supervision of the communist-era tB secret police, he served as a corporate lawyer, the Nations Memory Institute (PN) wrote.

Today, he remains a defender and promoter of freedom. Recently, he was one of the faces of the Ammunition for Ukraine crowdfunding project.

Among those to congratulate him was President Zuzana aputov, who paid him a personal visit at the Ohel David facility, which was established as the first Jewish home for the elderly with a nationwide scope. It is also the only facility of its kind in Slovakia for Holocaust survivors.

We debated about everything present-day Slovakia, the past, society, politics and his life, aputov wrote on Facebook. Today, many appreciate his rational approach to historical facts and lifelong optimism, unfeigned modesty, sense of justice, resistance to false heroism and lies, rare capacity for critical self-reflection and sympathetic sense of irony and self-deprecation.

Two of Slovakias zoos have recently been awarded for their upbringing of young animals.

The zoo in Bratislava placed second in the Mammals category of the prestigious White Elephant competition for its care of Sumatran orangutans. The competition awards exceptional achievements by zoos in Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

As Alexandra Ritterov, the zoos PR manager, told the TASR newswire, the young male, named Cahya, is the first successfully bred Sumatran orangutan in the whole of Slovakia.

Were happy that we could be part of this competition in a category full of amazing zoos, the zoo wrote on Facebook, thanking everybody who helps them with their mission to protect rare species.

Third place in the same category was taken by the zoo in Bojnice, western Slovakia, for its care of four European wildcat cubs.

The joy is even greater as we have already released one of last years cubs into the wild, the zoo wrote on Facebook.

Despite a decline in traditional mountain sheep farming in Slovakia, there are still people preserving the practice.

Several of them are active on the territory of the Slovak Paradise National Park.

For example, the farm in Hrabuice breeds about 800 sheep specifically, improved Wallachian sheep, native Wallachian sheep and Slovak milk sheep. They graze the slopes of Zelen Hora mountain and near the well-known tourist centre of Podlesok, the national park wrote on Facebook.

In another locality, Straten Pla, which is situated in the southern part of the park, there is a herd of more than 150 native Wallachian sheep.

The national parks nature offers the sheep nutritious pasture on the mountain meadows, and the sheep, in turn, help preserve the species diversity of plants, the conservationists wrote.

In order to lure a younger generation to sheep farming, the shepherds and sheep breeders have lately started receiving more money for their work.

Caption: They blocked my channel.

With this meme, caricaturist Mikul Sliacky reacts to the decision by video-sharing platform YouTube to cancel a channel that had belonged to the notorious Slovak extremist and conspiracy theorist Daniel Bombic, also known as Danny Kollar. By the standards of Slovak-language channels it had a large following on the platform 79,500 people and his videos had received more than 12 million views in the past seven months. Several coalition politicians have willingly appeared on his online show. Three European arrest warrants have been issued against the Slovak for extremism and the unauthorised handling of personal data. Bombic currently lives in London but in April a court there ordered his extradition to Slovakia. The decision is still subject to appeal.

You can send me your tips on good news stories about Slovakia or funny memes at: radka.minarechova@spectator.sk. Thank you!

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Holocaust survivor and tireless fighter for freedom celebrates his centenary - The Slovak Spectator

Category: Holocaust
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