Some groups stayed only briefly before they were deported again to the extermination camps, while other groups remained in the ghettos for months or years. Some of the deportees ended up in the forced-labor camps in the Lublin District (such as Poniatowa, Dęblin–Irena, and Krychów). Unusually, the deportees in the Lublin District were quickly able to establish contact with the Jews remaining in Slovakia, which led to extensive aid efforts. The fate of the Jews deported from Slovakia was ultimately "sealed within the framework of Operation Reinhard" along with that of the Polish Jews, in the words of Yehoshua Büchler. Transports went to Auschwitz after mid-June, where a minority of the victims were selected for labor and the remainder were killed in the gas chambers. This occurred for nine transports, the last of which arrived on 21 October 1942. From 1 August to 18 September, no transports departed; most of the Jews not exempt from deportation had already been deported or had fled to Hungary. In mid-August, Tiso gave a speech in Holič in which he described Jews as the "eternal enemy" and justified the deportations according to Christian ethics. At this time of the speech, the Slovak government had accurate information on the mass murder of the deportees from Slovakia; an official request to inspect the camps where Slovak Jews were held in Poland was denied by Eichmann. Three more transports occurred in September and October 1942 before ceasing until 1944. By the end of 1942, only 500 or 600 Slovak Jews were still alive at Auschwitz. Thousands of surviving Slovak Jews in the Lublin District were shot on 3–4 November 1943 during Operation Harvest Festival. Between 25 March and 20 October 1942, almost 58,000 Jews (two-thirds of the population) were deported. The exact number is unknown due to discrepancies in the sources. The deportations disproportionately affected poorer Jews from eastern Slovakia. Although the Šariš-Zemplín region in eastern Slovakia lost 85 to 90 percent of its Jewish population, Žilina reported that almost half of its Jews remained after the deportation. The deportees were held briefly in five camps in Slovakia before deportation; 26,384 from Žilina, 7,500 from Patrónka, 7,000 from Poprad, 4,463 from Sereď, and 4,000 to 5,000 from Nováky. Nineteen trains went to Auschwitz, and another thirty-eight went to ghettos and concentration and extermination camps in the Lublin District. Only a few hundred survived the war, most at