Slovakia
The Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic went their separate ways after 1 January 1993, an event sometimes called the Velvet Divorce. Slovakia has remained a close partner with the Czech Republic. Both countries co-operate with Hungary and Poland in the Visegrád Group. Slovakia became a member of NATO on 29 March 2004 and of the European Union on 1 May 2004. On 1 January 2009, Slovakia adopted the Euro as its national currency.
Jozef Tiso's speech in Holič
In March 1939, the Slovak State declared independence from Czechoslovakia; Germany invaded the Czech rump state. That October, Jozef Tiso, a Catholic priest, became president of Slovakia. Slovakia was the only country to pay for the deportation of its Jewish population, and the only country besides Nazi Germany to organize the deportation of its own Jewish citizens. In an 8 March petition, Slovak Jewish community leaders exhorted Tiso to cancel the planned deportation of Slovakia's Jews because it represented the "physical destruction of the Jews in Slovakia". Tiso ignored the petition, as well as the condemnation of papal ambassador Giuseppe Burzio. At the time of Tiso's speech, 55,000 Jews out of 89,000 had been deported from the Slovak State; the deportations had been halted on 1 August 1942. The Slovak government knew that the deportees were being systematically murdered.