Being “Local” in Eastern Slovakia: Belonging in a Multiethnic Periphery

Abstract

Focusing on coexistence in towns and villages of the former Šariš Zemplín County during World War II, our article exposes the shifting meanings assigned to belonging in what was a multiethnic borderland region and an economic periphery. Informed by works on community construction and meaning, we understand “locals” as being formed by diverse and at times conflicting social experiences that are nevertheless rooted in the same physical environment. We draw on late witness testimonies by Jewish survivors and Gentile neighbors to investigate the roles of public and private spaces in how a sense of community was revoked. Since the redrawing of boundaries was made into a public concern in the 1930s, the redefining of “locals” along ethnoreligious lines had a deep situational dimension, with local norms and experiences shaping the ousting of the Jews from what was historically a shared space. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and methodological implications of our research for writing integrated histories of the Holocaust, mindful of relationships between people, objects, but also places.