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Karol Kmeťko (December 12, 1875 – December 22, 1948) was the Roman Catholic Bishop of Nitra in Slovakia (1920-1948) and personal archbishop (from 1944).
Early life and ordination
Born in Veľké Držkovce, in the Trencsén County of the Kingdom of Hungary (present-day Slovakia), his interest in Catholicism led him to the priesthood. At the age of 23, Kmetko was ordained a priest in Nitra on July 2, 1899. Twenty-one years later, on February 13, 1921, he was appointed Bishop of Nitra.
Bishop
Before the 1942 deportations of Jews from Slovakia, Kmeťko confronted the president of the Slovak State, Jozef Tiso, with reliable reports of the murder of Jews in Ukraine. Kmeťko asked: "How can the government allow , when it is said that they carry the off to their death?" According to Kmeťko, Tiso replied "with something that I could not fully accept: ‘It’s enough for me that I have assurances from the Germans that they treat humanely, that they are used there as workers. For if Slovaks can go to Germany to work, why can’t the do the same?’"
On May 11, 1944, Kmeťko was appointed Archbishop of Nitra in Slovakia. According to the Catholic Hierarchy, Kmetko was a priest for 49.5 years and a bishop for 27.9 years. He died in December 1948 at the age of seventy-three.
References
- "Archbishop Karel Kmetko". Catholic-Hierarchy.org. David M. Cheney. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
- Ward, James Mace (2013). Priest, Politician, Collaborator: Jozef Tiso and the Making of Fascist Slovakia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. p. 232. ISBN 978-0-8014-6812-4.
- Rajcan, Vanda; Vadkerty, Madeline; Hlavinka, Ján (2018). "Slovakia". In Megargee, Geoffrey P.; White, Joseph R.; Hecker, Mel (eds.). Camps and Ghettos under European Regimes Aligned with Nazi Germany. Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos. Vol. 3. Bloomington: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. p. 847. ISBN 978-0-253-02373-5.
You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Slovak. (November 2019) Click for important translation instructions.
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- 1875 births
- 1948 deaths
- People from Bánovce nad Bebravou District
- People from the Kingdom of Hungary
- Roman Catholic archbishops in Czechoslovakia
- Slovak People's Party politicians
- Members of the Revolutionary National Assembly of Czechoslovakia
- Members of the Chamber of Deputies of Czechoslovakia (1920–1925)
- Bishops of Nitra