Anton Vašek (1905–1946) was the head of
Department 14 in the Slovak State's
Central Economic Office. He is known for accepting bribes in exchange for reducing deportation of Jews from Slovakia.
Life
Vašek attended law school. One of his classmates was the Jewish
Tibor Kováč.
On 3 April 1942, Vašek was appointed head of
Department 14 in the Slovak State's
Central Economic Office. This department was in charge of organizing the deportations during the
Holocaust in Slovakia
The Holocaust in Slovakia was the systematic dispossession, deportation, and murder of Jews in the Slovak State, a client state of Nazi Germany, during World War II. Out of 89,000 Jews in the country in 1940, an estimated 69,000 were murdered ...
. Vašek was soon approached by Kováč, who was now a member of the
Working Group
A working group, or working party, is a group of experts working together to achieve specified goals. The groups are domain-specific and focus on discussion or activity around a specific subject area. The term can sometimes refer to an interdis ...
, a Jewish resistance organization. Due to their prior relationship, Kováč was able to bribe Vašek, and visited his office almost daily to deliver bribes and provide Vašek with excuses to explain delays in deportations to his superiors. Vašek's desire for money to fund his gambling and womanizing made him susceptible to bribery; he was the highest-ranking Slovak official to accept bribes from the Working Group. Due to Vašek's intervention, a 26 June transport of Jews was cancelled; Vašek presented Interior Minister
Alexander Mach with a falsified report that all non-exempt Jews had already been deported. Mach was skeptical about the report, however, and the deportations resumed in July.
Although Vašek accepted thousands of
Slovak koruna
The Slovak koruna or Slovak crown ( sk, slovenská koruna, literally meaning ''Slovak crown'') was the currency of Slovakia between 8 February 1993 and 31 December 2008, and could be used for cash payment until 16 January 2009. The ISO 4217 code w ...
in bribes, he continued to organize transports and said that the "Jewish question must be solved 100 percent". Due to his high-handedness in exercising power over life and death, Vašek became known as the "king of the Jews" ( sk, Židovský kráľ). He was known to pull Jews out of cattle cars after receiving a bribe, only to send them on the next transport.
Vašek was tried by the
National Tribunal, accused of accepting 2 million koruna in bribes and being responsible for the deportation of 50,000 Slovak Jews to concentration camps.
Kovăc was a key witness for the prosecution at the trial. He was convicted on 28 July 1946,
sentenced to death, and executed.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Vasek, Anton
1905 births
1946 deaths
Holocaust perpetrators in Slovakia
Executed Slovak people
Slovak people convicted of murder
Slovak People's Party politicians
Executed Czechoslovak collaborators with Nazi Germany