Pope Francis opened his first full day in Slovakia on Monday by meeting with church and state leaders ahead of an encounter with the country's Jewish community to honor its Holocaust dead and atone for Catholic complicity in World War II-era racial laws and crimes.
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Francis arrived at the presidential palace, and later at the capital's St. Martin cathedral, on the second day of his four-day pilgrimage to Hungary and Slovakia which marks his first international outing since undergoing intestinal surgery in July.
Ahead of a rigorous two-day trip around Slovakia, Francis is spending Monday in the capital Bratislava where the highlight of his visit is an afternoon encounter at the capital's Holocaust memorial, built on the site of a synagogue destroyed by the communist regime in the 1960s.
During a brief visit to Hungary the previous day, where he also met the country's Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Francis on Sunday called for Christians and Jews to work together to stop the rise of antisemitism in Europe, saying it is a "fuse which must not be allowed to burn."
"I think of the threat of antisemitism still lurking in Europe and elsewhere. This is a fuse that must not be allowed to burn. And the best way to defuse it is to work together, positively, and to promote fraternity," the pontiff said.
More than half a million Hungarian Jews were killed in the Holocaust, which destroyed a once-vibrant culture across the country.
Today, there are about 75,000 to 100,000 Jews in Hungary, the largest number in central Europe, according to the World Jewish Congress, with most of them in Budapest.
A survey by the think tank Median commissioned by Mazsihisz, the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities, found that one in five Hungarians were strongly antisemitic, while another 16% were what the survey called moderately antisemitic.
The survey, published in July and taken during 2019-2020, said there were fewer antisemitic acts such as vandalism and physical assault in Hungary compared with other European countries.
In his speech, the pope evoked the image of Budapest's famous Chain Bridge over the Danube River, linking the two halves of the Hungarian capital, Buda and Pest.
"Whenever we were tempted to absorb the other, we were tearing down instead of building up. Or when we tried to ghettoize others instead of including them," the pope said. "We must be vigilant and pray that it never happens again."
He said Christian leaders should commit to what he called an education in fraternity to stand up against outbursts of hatred.
Slovakia declared its independence from Czechoslovakia on March 14, 1939, and became a Nazi puppet state with a politician and Roman Catholic priest Jozef Tiso becoming the country's president.
Now, only about 5,000 Jews live in Slovakia, a largely Roman Catholic country of 5.5 million currently ruled by a four-party center-right coalition government.
Just last week, the government formally apologized for the racial laws that stripped the country's Jews of their human and civil rights, prevented their access to education and authorized the transfer of their property to non-Jewish owners.
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Marking the 80th anniversary of the "Jewish Code" adopted on Sept 9, 1941, the government said in a statement on Sept. 8 that it "feels a moral obligation today to publicly express sorrow over the crimes committed by the past regime."
The code was considered one of the toughest anti-Jewish laws adopted in Europe during the war.
Slovakia is now home to the far-right People's Party Our Slovakia party, which has had members in Slovakia's Parliament since 2016. The party openly advocates the legacy of the Slovak Nazi puppet World War II state. Its members use Nazi salutes and want Slovakia out of the European Union and NATO.
In January, the Slovakian government approved the purchase of 17 radar systems produced by Israel Aerospace Industries. The deal, worth some $182 million, will include a technology transfer from Israel to Slovakia, as well as industrial cooperation between the two countries.
