Jozef Tiso

A Roman Catholic priest who led the Slovak People’s Party from 1938 through the end of World War II. Tiso became the first president of the independent Slovak Republic and led the Slovak government until it fell in April 1945. Under Tiso, Slovakia was little more than a client state of Germany and collaborated with Germany in the persecution, deportation, and murder of many Slovak Jews. Tiso oversaw the passage of a series of anti-Jewish laws that limited the ability of Slovak Jews to participate in public life, called the Jewish Codex. Between May-October 1942, Slovakia deported 57,000 Jews to German concentration and death camps in Poland, until the deportations were halted under pressure from the Vatican and other church officials. The German military occupied Slovakia in the summer of 1944 to put down an anti-fascist, partisan uprising against the Tiso regime. Thereafter, Tiso retained nominal power but was little more than a figurehead. Deportations of Slovak Jews were resumed in late September 1944 until the arrival of the Soviet Red Army in April 1945. Tiso fled Slovakia for Austria, where he was later captured by American troops, brought to trial in Slovakia, and executed in 1947.