He warns that the Roma are headed in the same direction

Prague, Sept 6 (ČTK) — Slovak Catholic priest Emil Floriš said the Jews themselves are to blame for the Holocaust and the same can happen to Romanies, the Czech daily Právo writes.

“A part of the speech by Floriš, who spoke at a mass in Čadca, north central Slovakia, that was devoted to Jews and the Holocaust offends and humiliates the memory of the victims,” Lucia Kollárová, spokeswoman for the Headquarters of the Jewish Religious Communities in Slovakia, told the Slovak news agency SITA, Právo writes.

Kollárová said a part of Floriš’s speech included untruths and anti-Semitic cliches, relativizing the suffering of the Jewish population during World War Two, also on the territory of present-day Slovakia.

Floriš reportedly said Jews from all over Europe had been transported to the concentration camps because they were hated, for which they themselves were to blame, Právo writes.

“Now the same is threatening Romanies. Do you know why? Because they abuse the system and charity of people,” Floriš said before hundreds of church-goers, Právo writes.

About 70,000 Jews were deported from war-time Slovakia, a Nazi-controlled puppet state, during the war. About 67,000 of them perished in Nazi death camps.

The head of wartime Slovakia, Catholic priest Jozef Tiso was executed as a war criminal in 1947.