Jewish history of Yugoslavia
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Also: Serbia (state, Balkans)
YUGOSLAVIA ("Land of the Southern Slavs"),
a Socialist Federated Republic in S.E. Europe, in the Balkan Peninsula.
The various elements of which Yugoslav Jewry was composed after
1918 (i.e. those of Serbia and the Austro-Hungarian countries)
were distinct from one another in their language, culture, social
structure, and character according to the six separate historical,
political, and cultural regions of their origin. These regions
were: Serbia; Slovenia; Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia; Bosnia-Herzegovina;
Macedonia; and Vojvodina.
Until 1918
Serbia
There were some Jews in Pannonia in Roman times.
Jews seem to have reached Belgrade and there were also traces
of a Jewish population along the banks of the Danube during the
tenth century. Some Jews penetrated into Serbia from Macedonia.
During the ninth and tenth centuries many of the Serbians converted
to Christianity. The faith of the new Christians at that time
was an amalgamation of Christianity, Judaism, and paganism. Benjamin
of Tudela, the 12th-century traveler, also mentions the influence
of the Jews on the inhabitants of the Balkans. At the time of
the conquest of Serbia by Sultan Murad in 1389, the Jews engaged
in the sale of salt. Under Turkish rule the Jews of Belgrade played
an important part in the trade between northern and southern Turkish
provinces which passed through Belgrade. During the period of
the Austrian rule over northern Serbia from 1718 to 1739, the
government's attitude toward the Jews was generally good. During
the Serbian wars of independence (180430), some of the Jews
fled from Belgrade and in 1807 founded a community, which numbered
280 persons in Zemun. The Jews supplied arms to the revolutionary
army. However, the independence movement, which fomented rebellions
against the Turks from time to time, frequently attacked the Jews.
In 1831 the Serbian government decreed certain limitations on
the crafts in which the Jews were engaged. In 1845 they were excluded
from tailoring and shoemaking. During the reign of Milosh Obrenovich,
the prince of Serbia, there was a favorable change in the condition
of the Jews. However, with the ascent of the Karageorgevich dynasty
in 1842, which supported the interests of the Serbian merchants
who envied their Jewish rivals, the condition of the Jews took
a turn for the worse. A decree of 1856 forbade the Jews to reside
in the provincial towns. There were then 2,000 Jews in Serbia.
About 1,000 of them settled in Belgrade, while the rest were dispersed
in other towns. When Prince Milosh returned to power in 1858,
the condition of the Jews temporarily improved. However, during
the reign of his son, Prince Michael (18601868), who was
also influenced by the Serbian merchants, the persecutions were
renewed. An expulsion decree of 1861 against 60 Jewish families
of Aabac was changed during the same year into another decree
which authorized the Jewsand this only in their places of
residenceto practice the same professions as they had engaged
in before February 28, 1861. The Jewish merchants, also in their
places of residence, were authorized to trade in raw materials
and foodstuffs. These rights, however, could not be transferred
to their successors. Concerning real estate, the new decree confirmed
a former one which prohibited the purchase of property in the
provincial towns.
After the assassination of Michael and the enthronement
of Milan Obrenovich, the Serbian parliament voted the emancipation
of all citizens, but at the same time confirmed the restrictive
decrees of 1856 and 1861. In 1873 the Jews were expelled from
the towns of Aabac, Smederevo, and Poyarevac. The treaty of Berlin
of 1878 accorded civil and political equality to the Jews of Serbia,
but it was only in 1889 that the Serbian parliament proclaimed
the complete equality of all Serbians without distinction of origin
and religion and abolished the restrictive decrees of the previous
years. In 1895 there were 5,102 Jews in Serbia, 5,729 in 1900,
and 5,000 in 1912. The number of Jews who participated in the
Balkan Wars (191213) was 500. During the Serbian-Bulgarian
war of 1913 and World War I many Jews were decorated.
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Slovenia
Jews lived in Slovenia from the 13th century
until they were expelled in 1496 by Emperor Maximilian I of Austria.
The biggest rabbinical center was at Maribor (Marburg) in the
Styria district. Maribor had a "Jewish Street" as early
as 1277 near the river Drava (Drau) and a synagogue inside the
walled city. Rabbi Israel Isserlein taught there. His official
title was "Landesrabbiner fuer Steiermark, Krain, und Korushka."
He was succeeded by his pupil R. Joseph b. Moses. Other Jewish
communities existed at Ptuj (Poetovia), Celje, Radgona, and Ljubljana.
Jews were engaged in viticulture, and traded in horses and cattle.
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Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia
The Croats, who penetrated into the N.W. Balkans
in the seventh century and established a kingdom in the tenth,
found there several Jewish communities. In the letter of Hisdai
ibn Shaprut (5:10) to Joseph the king of the Khazars, there is
a mention of the "king of the Gebalim" who sent a deputation,
which included Mar Saul and Mar Joseph, to Caliph Abdurrahman
III of Cordoba. The "king of the Gebalim, the Slavs,"
whose country bordered that of the Hungarians, was Kre2imir, king
of Croatia. The messengers informed Hisdai that Mar Amram of the
court of the Khazar king had come to the land of the "Gebalim."
There is little information on the Jews of Croatia from the 10th
to 15th centuries. Some Jews lived in the Croatian capital Zagreb
in the 13th and 14th centuries, when they had a chief entitled
"magistratus Judaeorum," and a synagogue. Others settled
between the Sava and Drava (Drau) and Danube rivers during the
15th century. As long as the economy of the country required the
presence of the Jews, they lived there without hindrance. As soon
as they were superfluous, they were persecuted and driven out.
The Jews were expelled from Croatia and Slavonia in 1456. Croatia
together with Hungary passed to the Hapsburgs in 1526, and no
Jews lived there for the next 200 years.
Toward the end of the 18th century, Jews from
Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, and especially Burgenland (east Austria)
resettled there. In 1776 Jews came to Osijek and in 1777 to Varaydin
and a limited number to Zagreb. At that time there was also a
Jewish community in Zemun. R. Judah b. Solomon Hai Alkalai (17981878),
who lived there from 1825 to 1874, also propagated the ideals
of the movement for the settlement of Erez Israel in Aabac and
Belgrade. A census of the Jews in 1773, during the reign of Maria
Theresa, revealed only 25 families. It was only after the publication
of the Toleranzpatent in 1782 by Emperor Joseph II that
the situation improved and more Jews arrived from the north and
the south. The right of residence was granted in 1791. Further
rights were granted in 1840, but the "tolerance tax"
remained in force. The Jews of Croatia and Dalmatia only received
their full emancipation in 1873. Until 1890 the community of Osijek
was the most prominent, but from that year the community of Zagreb,
founded in 1806, became the leading one. In 1841 an Orthodox congregation
was founded in Zagreb. The Jews of Croatia were mostly merchants
and some were artisans.
Jews arrived in Dalmatia with the Roman armies.
In Solin (Salona), in the vicinity of Split (Spalato), there are
remains of a Jewish cemetery of the third century. There was a
Jewish community in Solin until 641, when Solin was destroyed
by the Avars. During the Middle Ages, the Jews of Split and Ragusa
(Dubrovnik) engaged in commerce and especially in the brokerage
of the trade between Dalmatia and Italy and the Danubian countries.
Under the autonomous republic which was established in Dubrovnik
during the 15th century, the Jews lived in relative tranquillity.
The Christian clergy, however, attempted to oppress them and succeeded
in spreading blood libels in Dubrovnik in 1502, 1622, and 1662.
During the 16th century, refugees from Spain and Portugal settled
in Dalmatia. When Pope Paul IV expelled the Jews from Ancona in
1556, a considerable number of them requested asylum in Dubrovnik.
These included the physician Amatus Lusitanus and his friend the
poet Didacus Pyrrhus, both Marranos. In 1738 the condition of
the Jews in Dalmatia deteriorated. The Jews of Split lived in
a ghetto until the arrival of the French in 1806. In 1906 the
Austro-Hungarian government passed a law which defined the status
of the Jewish communities of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia.
In 1870 there were already 10,000 Jews in Croatia, Slavonia, and
Dalmatia; 13,488 in 1880; and 17,261 in 1890. After World War
I there were 20,000 Jews in Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia.
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Bosnia-Herzogovina
One of the republics in central Yugoslavia with
the largest Muslim population (750,000). There is no evidence
of the existence of a Jewish community in Bosnia before the expulsion
of the Jews from Spain. Tombstone inscriptions prove the existence
of Jews in Sarajevo in 1551. A special quarter was allocated to
them later in the 16th century and they lived there until the
conquest of the town by the Austrians in 1878. During the rule
of Daudji Pasha, who was appointed in 1635, the relations between
Turkey and Venice became strained. This had an adverse effect
on the commerce of the local Jews. During the siege of Ofen in
1686 many Jews fled to Sarajevo, including Zevi Hirsch Ashkenazi
(Hakham Zevi), who was appointed hakham there. A change
for the worse in the situation of the Jews of Sarajevo occurred
in 1833. In was only after payment of a heavy ransom that the
Jews were saved from the danger of riots and blood libel. The
laws of 1839, 1856, and 1876, which granted the Jews of Turkey
equality of rights with the other citizens, also applied to the
Jews of Bosnia. From then onward, some Jews were elected to the
Ottoman parliament in Constantinople and the municipal councils.
In 1876 Yaver Effendi Barukh was sent to the parliament as the
representative of Bosnia. Isaac Effendi Shalom was a member of
the Majlis Idareh ("Advisory Council to the Vali").
Upon his death, his place was filled by his son Solomon Effendi
Shalom, who was also a representative in the parliament. Two Jewish
delegates were sent to the Landstag which was opened in 1910.
Besides Sarajevo, there were also Jewish communities in the towns
of Travnik, Banja Luka, Bijeljina, and others. The following data
are available on the number of Jews in Bosnia from the end of
the 18th century. There were 1,500 Jews in 1780; 8,213 in 1895;
10,000 (Sephardim) in 1923; 13,701 in 1926; 14,000 in 1941 (together
with Herzegovina); and 1,298 in 1958. In addition to the Nazis
and the Usta2e who were active in Bosnia in World War II, the
former mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Am<n al-Husseini, succeeded
in enlisting the support of local authorities in the expulsion
of the Jews from the province and their extermination.
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Macedonia
The earliest Jewish presence was really in Macedonia
and Dalmatia. Philo mentions the Jews of Macedonia in Embassy
to Gaius (Legatio ad Gaium), translated into English by F.
H. Colson (1962), par. 281, while the apostle Paul delivered sermons
in its communities (Acts 20:12). A Greek inscription on
a pillar of the churcha former synagoguein Stobi (in
the vicinity of the town of Bitolj (Monastir) and now preserved
in the national museum of Belgrade, serves as evidence of the
Jewish settlement during the second and third centuries. In it,
Claudius Tiberius Polycharmos relates his Jewish way of life.
During the Middle Ages, Jews lived in Bitolj (Monastir), Skoplje,
Ochrida, and Struga. During the reign of the Serbian emperor Stefen
Dushan there is a mention of Jewish farmers in Macedonia (conquered
by Dushan in 1353). During the 14th century, the renowned grammarian
Judah (Leon) Moskoni, whose version of Josephus was published
in Constantinople in 1510, lived in Ochrida. During the 16th century
there were Jewish communities in Skoplje, Bitolj, Ni2, Smederevo,
and Po9arevac. At the time, Skoplje was a commercial center. The
Jews traded in wool clothes, "kachkaval" cheese, and
also engaged in commerce between Salonika and Constantinople on
the one hand and Western Europe on the other. In 1680 Nathan of
Gaza died in Skoplje. His admirers made an annual pilgrimage to
his tomb. When the armies of Leopold I approached Skoplje in 1689,
the Jews hurriedly abandoned the city. Their synagogues were burnt
down and the wall surrounding their quarter also was destroyed
by the flames. The Jewish population of xtip was of Salonikan
origin. During the 17th and 18th centuries, R. Abraham Motal ha-Paytan
("the hymnologist") and R. Reuben b. Abraham, who wrote
the work Derekh Yesharah (Leghorn, 1788) and in Ladino
Tikkunei ha-Nefesh (Salonika, 176575), lived in this
town. At the time of the upheavals in Turkey which preceded the
Balkan Wars, more Jews settled in Macedonia.
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Vojvodina
This was an Austrian frontier region and the
residence of Jews was prohibited there. Jews first settled in
Vojvodina during the 18th century, but they were exceptions. Most
Jewish communities were founded in the 1840s. The Jews of Vojvodina
engaged in commerce and in import-export trade. Before World War
II there were 19,200 Jews in Vojvodina (Ba"ka, 14,800; Banat,
4,400). In 1952 there were Jewish communities: in Novi Sad275;
Subotica, 403; Sombor, 46; Senta, 28; and Pan"evo, 34 following
immigration to Israel by most of the survivors of the Holocaust.
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After 1918
With the establishment of the Yugoslav kingdom,
about 100 Jewish communities (with 70,000 Jews) were included
in the new state. The Jews generally belonged to the middle class,
but there were also impoverished communities, such as that of
Bitolj. The Jews were well represented in industry, commerce,
and artisan activity. They also held an important place in the
banking business. There were some professions, such as the army
officers, cadres, the upper government services, and journalism,
from which the Jews were almost totally absent. The Jews of Croatia
and Slavonia were under the cultural influence of Germany and
Hungary and surpassed their coreligionists of the other Yugoslav
provinces in the economic and cultural spheres. The Jews of Macedonia
maintained their oriental character and their economic and cultural
standards were somewhat backward in comparison to the remainder
of Yugoslav Jewry. There was a marked Hungarian influence among
the Jews of Vojvodina. The Jews did not hold a prominent place
in political life, although there were some influential members
in the parties. De Majo, an advocate of Belgrade, was elected
in 1927 for one term to the parliament (Skupshtina).
Anti-Semitism as an organized movement was non-existent.
After World War I, some signs of it appeared, but the situation
improved again. The Karageorgevich dynasty and the Orthodox Church
evinced a favorable attitude toward the Jews. The anti-Semitic
sentiments really originated in Croatia and Slavonia. In Vojvodina,
there was some hostility toward the Jews who had been Austro-Hungarians
before the war and thus were considered to be the representatives
of the alien Hungarian culture.
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The Organization of the Jews
The unification of the variegated Yugoslav Jewish
population was not easy. Yugoslav Jewry did not form a single
unit. In the southern districts, from the Sava and Danube rivers
and further, there were essentially Sephardim, while the other
provinces were mainly inhabited by Ashkenazim. The Sephardim generally
adhered to their oriental manner of life and the Ladino language,
while some others were influenced by the speech and culture of
the southern Slavs. In 1939 there were about 43,000 Ashkenazim
and 29,000 Sephardim in Yugoslavia. They lived in 121 communities.
At a meeting of the communities which was convened in Osijek in
1919, the "Federation of Jewish (Religious) Communities"
was founded. It received government recognition and its activities
extended to the fields of religion, culture, and education. In
1923 the chief rabbinate was founded and an association of rabbis
was formed. The final status of the communities was confirmed
in 1929. The separate union of Orthodox communities, which had
refused to join the federation of the communities, also received
legal recognition at that time. The Orthodox union consisted of
12 communities and numbered 3,426 in 1935. The spiritual head
of the Jewish population was the chief rabbi, Dr. Isaac Alkalay
(he held office from 1924 to 1941), who was appointed by the king
and resided in Belgrade. The chief rabbi was equal in status to
the Orthodox patriarch, the Catholic archbishop, and the Muslim
reis ul-Ulema. He was also a member of the Yugoslav senate.
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Education and Culture
There were Jewish elementary schools, which had
existed before the Yugoslav kingdom, in the towns of Zrenjanin,
Osijek, Sarajevo, Senta, Zagreb, and Zemun. The government prohibited
the opening of new elementary schools. In Vojvodina there were
yeshivot in Senta, Subotica, Kanjiya, and Ilok. Jewish children
attended the general schools, in which two hours weekly were allocated
for Jewish religious studies. From 1928 to 1941 there was a seminary
in Sarajevo for the training of hakhamim and teachers on
a secondary school level. Among the scholars and authors mention
should be made of Lavoslav Aik, a historian of Yugoslav Jewry,
the poet Hinko Gottlieb, and Siegfried Kapper. An important place
in Yugoslav literature was held by Isak Samokovlija, a Bosnian
novelist who died in 1955. The headquarters of the Zionist Organization
were in Zagreb, where newspapers and periodicals were published.
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Statistics
In 1926 there was a Jewish population of 73,267
and in 1935, 70,000. According to the census of 1939, there were
71,000 Jews. The decrease in the number of Jews in Yugoslavia
can be explained by the increase of anti-Semitism in Europe.
[Simon Marcus/Editorial Staff Encyclopaedia
Judaica]
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Holocaust Period
In April 1941, Yugoslavia was occupied by German,
Hungarian, Italian, and Bulgarian troops. it was divided into
several parts: Serbia and the Banat came under direct German military
administration: Hungary reoccupied some of the areas it had ceded
to newly formed Yugoslavia after World War I: Bulgaria took over
Macedonia; and Italy extended its rule over Dalmatia and Montenegro.
Most of the remaining territoryCroatia, Bosnia, and Herzegovinawas
formed into a new "Independent State of Croatia."
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Serbia and the Banat
On the day after the occupation of Belgrade (April
13, 1941), German troops, assisted by "Volksdeutsche"
(local Germans), ransacked the Jewish shops. Within a week, the
Jews were ordered to register with the police, and eventually
9,145 Jews, out of a total prewar population of about 12,000,
were registered. The Jews were removed from public service. The
yellow badge was introduced, and Jews were drafted into forced
labor. About 3,500 to 4,000 males from the age of 14 to 60 were
forced to clear the buildings that had been razed by the bombardment,
while women aged 16 to 40 were given menial tasks in the German
military installations. A special police detachment was formed
to deal with the Jewish population. A "Jewish Organization"
(Jevrejska Zajednica) was created to attend to the needs of the
Jewish population. The Nazis forced the organization to collect
contributions from the Jews and provide hostages to ensure Jewish
compliance with their orders. After the German invasion of the
U.S.S.R., the occupation regime became even harsher. In one incident
alone, at the end of July, 120 Jewish hostages were shot to death
(in the village of Jajinci, near Belgrade). In the Banat, which
had a large German minority, the situation was worse. After robbing
the Jews of all their property and belongings, the Nazis placed
them in camps and a few weeks later (in September 1941) deported
them to Belgrade, adding another 2,500 people to its destitute
Jewish population. By the end of September, all Jewish men aged
16 and above were put into a concentration camp, situated in Topovske
Aupe, a Belgrade suburb.
Felix Benzler, German consul in Belgrade, and
Edmund Veesenmayer, from the German Foreign Office, demanded the
concentration of "at least" 8,000 men on an island in
the Danube delta and their liquidation there and asked for appropriate
pressure on the German military authorities. Adolf Eichmann was
consulted on the matter and proposed the immediate execution of
the Jews. He dispatched Franz Rademacher to Belgrade who discovered
that of the 8,000 Jewish men, 2,000 had already been shot and
there were only about 4,0005,000 left. He arranged for their
execution "by the end of the week" (October 1941). Between
Aug. 25 and Oct. 18, 1941, all Jewish men in Nazi handsthose
who had been put on forced labor (about 3,000), the deportees
from the Banat, and any others that the Nazis had succeeded in
apprehendingwere concentrated in the Topovske Aupe camp
anti in the nearby Banjica camp. The massacre began in the early
part of September. Day by day, groups of Jews, ranging from 100
to 300, were taken out of the two camps, ostensibly for work in
the fields. In fact a total of 4,500 were shot to death, the scene
of the crime being either Jajinci or some other site on the opposite
bank of the Danube. A group of Jewish refugees from Germany, Austria,
and Czechoslovakia who had been on their way to Palestine in September
1940 had been stranded on the Danube for lack of a seaworthy boat
to continue their voyage. They had found temporary refuge in the
Yugoslav town of Aabac, but when the Nazis occupied the country
they were all interned (together with 63 local Jews). Originally
their number was 1,300, but 200 refugees, mostly children, had
received immigration certificates to Palestine and had departed.
In October 1941, all the men were taken to the Danube village
of Zasavica and shot; the women and children were deported to
the Sajmi2te camp in Zemun near Belgrade. In February 1942 they
were loaded into closed trucks and were gassed while en route
to Jajinci. Not a single person escaped from this camp, and the
fate of its inmates was reported by a few Jewish women, wives
of gentiles, whom the Nazis had released. In August 1942 a German
report stated that the "problem of Jews and gypsies had been
solved; Serbia is the only country where this problem no longer
exists."
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The Independent State of Croatia
The new Independent State of Croatia (NDH) was
headed by Ante PaveliB, leader of the Usta2e movement, who had
been in exile in Italy and Germany and had developed relations
with the Nazis. For the Jews, the four years of his rule in Croatia
were marked by savage cruelty and terror. Within a few days of
the occupation of Zagreb, the Germans, the local Nazis, and the
Usta2e combined to deprive the Jews of their property and their
status. Nuremberg-style laws were enacted as early as April 30,
1941, followed by the removal of Jews from all public posts and
the introduction of the yellow badge. On August 27, a decree was
issued expropriating all Jewish-owned real estate, and two months
later the Jews were ordered to hand over all other valuables in
their possession. In Osijek, a levy of 20,000,000 dinars was imposed
upon the Jews within three days of the occupation of the city;
in Zagreb, the Usta2e arrested the wealthy Jews in May and kept
them hostage until a ransom equivalent to 100 kilograms of gold
was provided for their release. Synagogues, cultural institutions,
and even Jewish cemeteries were razed by the Usta2e as soon as
it came to power.
Early in May 1941, the first concentration camp
was established in the Danica factory, in the village of Drinja,
near Koprivnica. Mass arrests of Jews were stepped up after the
outbreak of the German-Soviet war (June 1941), and a number of
additional concentration camps were established in Jasenovac,
Stara Gradi2ka, Loborgrad, and Djakovo. A temporary camp, at Jadovno
near GospiB, served as one of the early extermination camps. By
July 1941 all the inmates of the Danica camp had been murdered,
and by August the inmates at the Jadovno camp had suffered the
same fate. The main, and most notorious, of the Croatian concentration
camps was situated near Jasenovac, a town on the Zagreb-Belgrade
railroad. This camp remained in existence throughout the period
of Croatian "independence," and tens of thousands of
people were murdered there, among them about 20,000 Jews. It was
to these camps that the Jews of Croatia proper were deported.
Exact figures are not available, but it is estimated that by the
end of 1942, 5,000 Jews had been deported. Further deportations
took place as late as 1944. The Jewish communities continued to
exist, although they were now largely made up of persons with
only one Jewish parent, who were protected by law; Jewish partners
of mixed marriages were also saved from deportation due to the
efforts of the Catholic Church, and especially the papal nuncio.
(About 1,000 such persons survived in Croatia.).
Bosnia and Herzegovina, which were incorporated
into "independent" Croatia, had a prewar Jewish population
of about 14,000. When the Germans occupied Sarajevo (April 17,
1941), one of their first acts was to set fire to the Sephardi
synagogue in the city, the finest structure of its kind in the
Balkan countries. They were assisted in this act of vandalism
by local Muslims, who, under the influence of their spiritual
leaders, were generally hostile to the Jews and willingly collaborated
with the Nazis. Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the ex-mufti of Jerusalem,
went especially from Berlin to Sarajevo in order to give his blessing
to the Bosnian Muslim division named "Handjar" (Sword),
which was among the Croatian puppet state's contributions to the
German war machine. This division effectively fought on the eastern
front against the Soviet Union, incorporated in the ranks of the
Wehrmacht. In the wake of an act of sabotage that occurred at
the end of July, nine of the leading Jews of Sarajevo and 12 prominent
Serbs were arrested, and within a few days the police announced
their execution by a firing squad. Mass deportations began on
September 3, when 500 Jews were dispatched to a camp at Kru2"ica
near Travnik; a second transport to the same location took place
a few days later. On Oct. 19, 1941, in celebration of "Germany
Day," 1,400 Jews were arrested in Sarajevo. Although the
community commissars (a Serb and a Muslim) succeeded in getting
a few of the Jews released, the community as a whole was panic-stricken
and made strenuous efforts to escape. About 1,600 made their way
to Italian-occupied Mostar. The largest roundup of Jews was organized
by the Germans on Nov. 1516, 1941, when 3,000 Jews were
deported to Jasenovac. Women and children from Bosnia and Herzegovina
were taken to the Loborgrad and Djakovo camps. By the end of August
1942, some 9,000 Jews had been deported, and only 120 were left.
In the fall of 1941 the Krui2"ica camp was liquidated, the
men being sent to Jasenovac and the women to Loborgrad. A year
later, the Loborgrad camp suffered a similar fate, and those who
had survived the first year were now dispatched to the Auschwitz
death camp.
The Jewish community of Osijek had been tricked
by the Usta2e into building its own ghetto in a factory near the
village of Tenje. When the job was completed, the Jews of Osijek
and the surrounding area were crowded into the factory, where
they lived for a period of two months. In August 1942, the surviving
inmates were transported to Jasenovac and Auschwitz. By April
1945, only a little over 1,000 Serbs and Jews were still alive
in the Jasenovac camp. On April 22 they were all crowded into
a single factory building to await their death. In a final desperate
effort, some 600 of the prisoners broke the gates and attacked
the Usta2e guard; for most of them, the effort was in vain, and
only 80 saved their lives, among them 20 Jews. The Stara Gradi2ka
camp, a "branch" of Jasenovac, "specialized"
in women and children, and no less than 6,0007,000 children,
according to one report, were put to death there. The German consul
in Zagreb, Siegfried Kasche, and police attachM Hans Helm reported
to Berlin on April 18, 1944 that "Croatia is one of the countries
in which the Jewish problem has been solved."
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Vojvodina (Backa and Baranja)
In Vojvodina, occupied by Hungarian troops, the
fate of the Jews (and, to a certain degree, the local Serbs) was
no different. In Subotica, the main city in Ba"ka, 250 persons
were killed in the first days of the occupation. In Novi Sad,
the first slaughter took place on the third day of the occupation,
when 500 people, both Jews and Serbs, were murdered. The Jewish
community was threatened with deportation to Croatia unless it
made an immediate payment of 50,000,000 dinars; after great efforts,
34,000,000 were raised. Altogether, about 3,500 people were killed
in Vojvodina in the initial stage, among them 150200 Jews.
Concentration camps were established in various places (Subotica,
Stari Be"ej, Ada, Od9aci, Ba9ka Topola), and some 2,000 Jews
passed through these camps in the first two months of the occupation.
In January 1942, a clash between resistance fighters and a Hungarian
troop detachment caused the death of four Hungarian soldiers,
and in reprisal 1,000 men, women, and children were rounded up
and shot to death. Among the victims of this slaughter were 100
Jews. A few weeks later, a similar action took place at Novi Sad,
where 870 Jewsalmost a fifth of the total Jewish population
of the cityin addition to 430 Serbs were murdered. Thousands
more were brought to the banks of the Danube to suffer the same
fate when a dispatch from the Hungarian military authorities arrived
to put an end to the mass killing.
In 1942 the Hungarians ordered the formation
of forced labor battalions into which all Jews and Serbs between
the ages of 21 and 48 were drafted. Some 4,000 Jews from Ba"ka
and Baranja were conscripted into the battalions; 1,500 were sent
to the Ukraine, near the front, where they succumbed to disease
and starvation or were murdered. Only 20 of the entire group survived
the ordeal. The others were sent to Hungary and Serbia, where
they were put to work in copper mines and on the railroads, together
with about 6,000 Hungarian Jews. In spite of the harsh conditions
to which they were exposed, they managed to survive for a while.
The end came in March 1944, when Hungary was taken over by German
forces. On September 17, a transport of 3,600 Jews from the Bor
mines (where the labor battalions were concentrated) was dispatched
in the direction of Belgrade; about 1,300 prisoners were murdered
or died en route and the rest were deported to Germany. A short
while later a second transport of 2,500 Jews, which included a
large contingent of Vojvodina Jews, was organized. Some of these
managed to escape, and several hundred were liberated by Tito's
partisans, finding refuge with the population in Serbia and the
Banat. The rest of the Jews from Ba"ka and Baranja were deported
on April 2526, 1944. About 4,000 Jews from the area of Novi
Sad were interned at Subotica, while the Jews from the eastern
part of Ba"ka were dispatched to a camp in Baja (Hungary);
in May 1944, the group from Subotica were also sent to Baja. Eventually
all the inmates of the Baja camp (as well as those of the Ba"ka
Topola camp) were deported to Auschwitz.
Macedonia
The majority of Macedonian Jews were concentrated
in three cities: in Skoplje (3,795 Jews, including 300 refugees
from Belgrade); Bitolj (Monastir; 3,350); and Atip (550). Direct
control of the area was in Bulgarian hands, and for the first
18 months persecution of the Jews did not go beyond confiscation
of property, forced contributions, and personal insults. In August
1942, a group of 50 refugees from Belgrade were handed over to
the Gestapo, which deported them to the Banjica camp; on Dec.
3, 1942, they were put to death in Jajinci. At the beginning of
January 1943, further restrictions were imposed on the Jews, and
two months later all of the Jewish population of Macedonia was
placed in a temporary concentration camp in the "Monopol"
tobacco factory near Skoplje. On March 22 a transport of 2,338
Jews was dispatched to the death camps in Poland, followed a week
later by two more transports, numbering 2,402 and 2,404 people.
Only about 100 Jews returned to Macedonia from these transports.
About 150200 Sephardi Jew's were recognized by the Spanish
government as Spanish nationals and were not deported; about 120
Jews fled to Albania, and some joined the partisans.
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Italian-Occupied Areas
Compared to the other parts of occupied Yugoslavia,
the area under Italian control was a haven for the Jews. In spite
of constant pressure by German diplomatsincluding Kasche,
the German consul at Zagrebthe Italians refused to accede
to demands to deport Jews and, for a while at least, regarded
any measure discriminating against the Jews as incompatible with
the honor of the Italian army. Originally there were a small number
of Jews in this area, but soon it became a refuge for Jews from
Bosnia and Croatia. In August 1941, according to a German estimate,
there were between 4,000 and 5,000 Jews in Dubrovnik and Mostar.
By November 1941, the Italians went as far as establishing camps
for the Jewish refugees, interning refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina
in Kupari (near Dubrovnik) and Jews from Croatia in Kraljevica.
In Split there were 2,000 refugees, in addition to 415 local Jews;
500 were sent to the island of Kor"ula and 1,100 to Italy
(mostly to Ferramonti internees camp). In June 1943, 2,650 Jewish
inmates of camps in Dalmatia were deported to the island of Rab.
In all the camps, the Italians extended humane treatment to the
Jews.
In September
1943, after the Italian capitulation, Tito's partisan army evacuated
2,000 refugees from Rab; able-bodied men joined the partisans,
while the old men, women, and children found refuge in northern
Dalmatia. About 300 peoplethe old and sick, women and their
small childrenremained on the island, and when the Germans
invaded it, in March 1944, they were deported to Auschwitz. A
similar fate overtook the Jews in Split. On Sept. 28, 1943, all
adult men were interned, and after a while they were deported
to Sajmi2te, where they were all murdered. In March 1944 300 women
and children were deported from Split to Jasenovac where they
died.
top
Jewish Partisans
Yugoslav Jews took an active part in the fight
against the Nazis and played a leading role among the organizers
of Tito's revolt. Ten Jews were named as national heroes of the
resistance. No exact figures are available for the number of Jews
who fought with the partisans, because they did not enlist as
Jews, and in the early stage no family names were recorded. With
one exception, there were no Jewish units. After the war, however,
the Federation of Yugoslav Jewish Communities was able to identify
2,000 Jewish names among the members of Tito's formations.
Shortly after the occupation of Belgrade, Ha-Shomer
ha-Za'ir put itself at the disposal of the Communist Party and
helped organize the resistance. The first secret radio in Zagreb
was operated by two Jewish brothers and the first act of sabotage
in Vojvodina was carried out by youngsters of the Jewish youth
movement. Individual Jews committed acts of sabotage, and in August
1942 the first group joined the partisans. A Jewish partisan unit
was formed in the fall of 1943 from among the Jews evacuated from
the Italian camp on the island of Rab. Composed of 250 men, the
unit suffered heavy losses in the fighting against the Germans:
its ranks were decimated, and the survivors were incorporated
into other units. The most prominent Jewish resistance fighter
was Mo2a Pijade, who became one of Tito's four vice-presidents
after the liberation.
[Editorial Staff Encyclopaedia Judaica]
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Contemporary Period
From the end
of 1944, when Yugoslavia was liberated, about 14,000 Jews returned
to the cities from their places of hiding, the partisan areas,
and prison camps. The Federation of Jewish Communities officially
reestablished its activities on Oct. 22, 1944, a few days after
the liberation of Belgrade, when its surviving chairman, Friedrich
Pops, reopened its office. Fifty-six Jewish communities were reconstructed,
and the federation, with the aid of the American Jewish Joint
Distribution Committee (JDC), engaged in a variety of welfare
projects, including the reopening of the home for the aged in
Zagreb, extending material aid to the needy who began to return
to their daily lives, etc. It also reestablished its ties with
the World Jewish Congress and other Jewish organizations.
Upon the establishment of the State of Israel
(1948), the Federation sought and received permission from the
Yugoslav authorities to send material help and organize Jewish
emigration to Israel. From the end of 1948 until 1952 about 8,000
Jews, who were allowed to take their property with them, left
for Israel. After 1952 the number of Jews remained almost unchanged
at 6,5007,000, of whom 6,2006,500 were registered
in 38 communities. In 1968 there were 1,552 Jews in Belgrade,
1,359 in Zagreb, 1,095 in Sarajevo, 1,320 in six communities (each
of which had more than 100 members), 911 in 28 local and district
communities (some of which had less than ten members), and another
220 scattered throughout the country. The structure of Yugoslav
Jewry is revealed by censuses taken in 1952 and 1957. The first
census covered 6,250 Jews who were registered in communities.
Of these, 43% were male and 57% female; about 50% were Sephardim
(especially in Serbia and Bosnia) and the rest were Ashkenazim
(mostly in Croatia and Slovenia). Of the children, 591 were under
the age of seven, 818 were in elementary school, 325 were in high
school, and 247 were in institutes of higher learning. Among the
adults, there were 12 apprentices in various fields, 221 doctors
(military and civilian), 41 pharmacists, 21 veterinarians, 82
engineers, 46 technicians, 54 teachers in schools of higher learning,
48 teachers and educators, 27 lawyers, 12 judges (and 33 others
held law degrees), 31 journalists, 875 in different branches of
administration, 247 economists and administrators in economic
enterprises, 4 agronomists, 231 artisans, 33 writers and artists,
73 army officers (not counting medical personnel), 5 noncommissioned
officers, 233 on pension, 136 with no profession, 277 in various
other professions, 1,435 housewives, 314 elderly people without
pensions, 106 chronically ill, 45 seriously crippled, and 257
did not supply details on their professional status. The census
of 1957 covered 6,691 Jews including 137 women per every 100 men
(contrasted with an average of 106 women per 100 men in the general
population). The number of children (up to age 18) was 25.1% of
the Jewish, and 38.7% of the total population.
The activities of the Federation of Jewish Communities
were founded upon the 1953 law that regulated the activities of
religions and churches in Socialist Yugoslavia. But religious
life was only part, and not necessarily the outstanding part,
of Jewish community life. In 1952 the federation deleted the word
"religious" from its title and the title of the communities
associated with it. The communities thus viewed themselves as
national Jewish entities, preserving their ties with worldwide
Jewish organizations and various bodies in Israel. This attitude
was made possible by the liberal Yugoslav policy on the question
of nationalities and the support of widespread circles in Yugoslavia
for Judaism and for Israel. The federation devoted much of its
efforts to Jewish education. Kindergartens were established in
a number of cities (and still functioned in 1969, in Belgrade
and Zagreb); youth centers and sections for women, whose activities
were directed by appropriate national boards, were set up in some
communities; the larger communities reestablished their libraries;
and an historical museum was established in Belgrade, including
an institute for research on the history of Yugoslav Jewry, in
which non-Jewish scholars also participated. Jewish youths were
sent to Jewish seminars and studies abroad, and every year summer
camps involved between 350 and 400 youth on various levels. Choirs
in Belgrade and in Zagreb cultivated Israel and Hebrew music,
both religious and secular.
There is special concern regarding the preservation
of cemeteries of historic significance and the orderly liquidation
of cemeteries and other property of communities which could not
be preserved or were displaced by urban-renewal projects. Some
synagogues were handed over to local cultural institutions and
serve as cultural houses and museums. About 30 monuments have
been erected to the victims of World War II in cemeteries and
public places.
The Federation of Jewish Communities publishes
a monthly organ and an annual Jevrejski Almahah. The first
almanac appeared in 1954, the seventh, for 196567, in 1968.
The almanacs cover historical and current-affairs material as
well as literary works about the Holocaust. The Jewish youth publish
an organ entitled Kadimah. For a number of years a calendar
printed in Serbo-Croatian was put out (containing prayers printed
in Latin characters) by the only rabbi (hakham) to have
survived the Holocaust, Menahem b. Abraham Romano (18821968)
of Sarajevo. In 1952 the federation published a book entitled
Crimes of the Fascist Conquerors and their Collaborators Against
the Jews in Yugoslavia, whose second edition includes a summary
in English. The federation also published a number of basic Jewish
books including a translation of a short history of the Jewish
people by S. Dubnow with an epilogue that carries on his concept
of the Jewish nation with a Marxist interpretation.
The position of religion in community life weakened.
In the community organizations committees for religious affairs
have tried to satisfy the needs of the community as much as possible.
On holidays the communities often celebrated with communal prayers
and meals. No one was left to replace Rabbi Romano upon his death.
Religious life was supplemented by observance of days of remembrance,
especially for the victims of the Holocaust. Representatives of
Yugoslav Jewry participate in many Jewish world conferences. Their
ties with Israel were demonstratedwith the agreement of
Yugoslav authoritiesby fund raising for the Martyrs Forest
and the forest in memory of Albert Vajs (Weiss; 19051964),
successor to Pops as chairman of the federation, and mutual visits
by delegations of youth and others. After 1966 the federation
expanded its ties with Jewish communities in Eastern European
countries. Mutual visits were frequent, not only on occasions
of celebration, such as the 400th anniversary of the establishment
of the community in Sarajevo (October 1966), but also for discussions
on practical matters. Even the Israel-Arab Six-Day War (1967),
which brought about Yugoslavia's one-sided position and the severance
of diplomatic relations with Israel, did not change this situation.
The federation's activities were not restricted from above, although
it took upon itself specific restrictions in its relations with
the State of Israel.
[Cvi Rotem]
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1970's
The present Jewish population of Yugoslavia is
estimated at approximately 5,500, the majority of whom reside
in Belgrade, Zagreb and Sarajevo. Although the regime in Yugoslavia
is authoritarian, its internal structure is the most liberal of
all Eastern European countries, and the Jewish community enjoys
freedom both with regard to the organization of communal life
and the conduct of religious and cultural activities, and most
notably with regard to the community's ties with international
Jewish organizations. Thus delegates from Yugoslavia regularly
participate in the conventions of the World Jewish Congress, the
World Conference of Synagogues and Kehillot, etc. From all parts
of Yugoslavia, 28 community heads participated in a seminar and
study tour in Israel (Oct. 19, 1976Nov. 2, 1976), organized
by the Jewish Agency.
Though not a member of the Warsaw Pact, and with
a foreign policy independent of Moscow, since 1967 Yugoslavia
has adopted an extreme anti-Israel policy with regard to the Middle
East conflict. It is the foremost defender and militant champion
of sanctions against Israel in all international forums, including
the UN and its agencies.
[Eliezer
Palmor/Editorial Staff Encyclopaedia Judaica]
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Relations with Israel
Between the end of World War II, which saw the
creation of Yugoslavia as a Communist federal republic, and the
establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the Yugoslav attitude
to Palestine Jewry was friendly and found expression in allowing
passage to thousands of "illegal" immigrants to Palestine.
From the Yugoslav point of view, this formed part of the anti-imperialist
struggle. In 1947 Yugoslavia was elected a member of the 11-nation
Special Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP). Its representatives
declared their understanding for Jewish aspirations to independence,
but eventually took a stand for a binational state, and in the
UN Assembly, in November 1947, Yugoslavia did not vote for the
partition resolution. However, following the proclamation of the
establishment of the State of Israel, Yugoslavia recognized the
new state on May 19, 1948; full diplomatic relations and the first
trade agreement were quick to follow. The majority of Yugoslav
Jews, survivors of the Holocaust, were permitted to go to Israel
in 194849. In the years 1949 to 1954 relations were cordial.
Political, social, and cultural ties were developed through exchange
of delegations, as, e.g., between the Socialist Union and Mapai,
the Yugoslav trade unions and the Histadrut, and through manifold
activities of the respective legations at Belgrade and Tel Aviv.
Although Yugoslav diplomacy was not, even before
1956, generally favorable to Israel's stand in the Arab-Israel
conflict, it did preserve a fairly balanced attitude until then.
On Sept. 1, 1951, its representative voted, in the Security Council,
for free navigation for all nations in the Suez Canal, a resolution
hailed at the time as a victory for Israel. Marked deterioration
on the Yugoslav side came after the Bandung Conference in 1955
and Yugoslav premier Tito's policy of assembling, and possibly
leading, a group of "nonaligned" nations, together with
Egypt's president Gamal Abdel Nasser, and Jawaharlal Nehru, prime
minister of India. As Tito's collaboration with Nasser went ahead,
relations with Israel became cooler. Another important factor
in the changed Yugoslav attitude was the improvement of relations
between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union from May 1955. During
the Sinai crisis (1956), Yugoslavia adopted an extremely hostile
attitude to Israel. It thereafter slowed down and finally stopped
most of the positive aspects of bilateral cooperation. Apart from
trade, only personal contacts between Jews were permitted to continue.
Yugoslavia supported the Arab stand against Israel in all spheres,
save for economic boycott.
*Yugoslav policy in the Middle East gradually
evolved into a completely one-sided, pro-Arab position, culminating
in its branding Israel as the "aggressor" in the Six-Day
War (June 1967), severing diplomatic relations concurrently with
other Communist countries (Rumania excluded), and open advocacy
of Egyptian-Arab extremist viewpoints. However, the sympathies
of the Yugoslav people still seemed to incline toward Israel.
By 1971, the only aspect of Yugoslav-Israel relations
which continued unaffected was in the sphere of trade, although
Yugoslavia unilaterally suspended, in April 1970, the payments'
agreement. Commercial ties started modestly in 1949, with a few
hundred thousand dollars' worth of exchange both ways, and grew
steadily; at the time of the signature of the third trade agreement
in 1966 they had reached six million dollars. Trade was still
growing in 1971, being fairly balanced. Yugoslav firms were represented
in Israel, and there seemed to be a common understanding to continue
with mutually useful trade exchanges.
The main items imported by Israel from Yugoslavia
were meat, wood, furniture, boxes for packing citrus, metal products,
and sugar. Its exports were cement, citrus fruits and concentrates,
phosphates, tires, textile rayons, and plastic products.
[Zvi Loker]
A slightly more favorable tone towards Israel's
rights was, however, expressed by the late President Tito during
his visit to Rumania (Dec. 34, 1977), when he said: "Israel
exists for many years as a genuine fact, is recognized by the
UN and is a member of it; any other view would be unrealistic.
Thus, all the Arab states must recognize Israel as a state."
Commercial ties have always been at a relatively
high level of trade. In 1980 Israeli imports from Yugoslavia amounted
to $18.6 million and exports to $34.2 million.
[Eliezer
Palmor/Editorial Staff Encyclopaedia Judaica]
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1990's
The violent breakup
of Yugoslavia which began in 1991 and the bloody civil war that
accompanied it had far-reaching and traumatic effects on the 5,000
to 6,000 Jews who lived in the country.
Yugoslavia was a loose federation of six republics:
Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, and
Montenegro. By the end of 1992, Slovenia and Croatia were independent
states; civil war still raged in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the status
of Macedonia was unclear. Serbia and Montenegro alone made up
a rump Yugoslavia.
Until the division of the country, Yugoslav Jews
had belonged to communities joined in autonomous republic-wide
organizations which in turn were members of a nationwide Federation
based in Belgrade.
Most Jews were concentrated in the capital cities
of three of the republics: Zagreb, capital of Croatia, with about
1,200 Jews, Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, with about
1,000, and Belgrade, capital of Serbia and also the federal capital,
with about 1,500 Jews. The remaining Jews lived in much smaller
scattered communities, mostly in Croatia and Serbia's Vojvodina
province. Fewer than 100 Jews lived in Slovenia, and only 100
in Macedonia.
There was little overt anti-Semitism, and the
rate of intermarriage was high. Through the 1980's participation
grew in wide-ranging programs and activities run by the Federation
and the individual communities (with the help of international
Jewish philanthropic organizations). These included a summer camp
on the Adriatic Sea, annual Maccabi sports competitions, old-age
care facilities, women's and youth groups and educational programs
including religion classes, Hebrew classes, and the first Jewish
kindergarten in Yugoslavia in more than a decade, which opened
in Zagreb, the most active community, in 1989. Yugoslavia had
only one rabbiBelgrade-based Cadik Danonbut by the
late 1980s one young man was in Israel studying to become a rabbi,
and several others were training as cantors or lay leaders for
religious services.
Although Yugoslavia had not restored diplomatic
relations with Israel broken after the Six-Day War in 1967, commercial
and cultural ties as well as cooperation in the areas of sports
and tourism burgeoned during the 1980s. Slovenia's Adria Airlines
established direct flights to and from Israel in 1989. Yugoslavia's
Jews also maintained close ties with various international Jewish
organizations, and by the late 1980s Yugoslav government officials
also met with Jewish and Israeli representatives. At a meeting
in New York in July 1987, Yugoslav leader Lazar Mojsov told World
Jewish Congress president Edgar Bronfman that he would "work
toward better relations with the Jewish world as a whole and with
the State of Israel."
A landmark cultural event was a major exhibition
on the Jews of Yugoslavia which opened in Zagreb in April 1988
and then was shown elsewhere in the country, attracting tens of
thousands of visitors, before going on to the United States and
Israel. Belgrade's first Holocaust memorial (aside from memorials
in the Jewish cemetery) was dedicated in 1990; it was by the Jewish
sculptor Nandor Glid.
The mounting separatism and ethnic tensions that
came to the fore in the late 1980s had their effect on the Jewish
communities. Some Jews felt that Serbian overtures to Israel including
the formation in 1989 of a Serbian-Jewish friendship society and
the twinning of various Serbian-Israeli cities were mainly aimed
at courting world Jewry to give support to Serbia in its opposition
to any decentralization of the state. A leader of the tiny Jewish
community in Slovenia warned of possible anti-Semitism after a
youth magazine published Protocols of the Elders of Zion in
1990. In Zagreb, Jewish leaders at the end of 1990 expressed concern
that Croatian nationalism might prompt a resurgence of anti-Semitism,
but later threw support behind the Croatian government when it
seceded from Yugoslavia and became embroiled in civil war.
When the civil war broke out following Slovenian
and Croatian secession in the summer of 1991, the status of Jewish
communities again became a political issue. Serbs and Croats attempted
to discredit each other with accusations of anti-Semitism. In
early 1992 Klara Mandic, a founder of the Serbian-Jewish Friendship
Society, visited the United States and in a series of lectures
and articles charged the Croatian government of Franjo Tudjman
with reviving fascism and anti-Semitism and planning "genocide"
against Serbs in Croatia. Nenad Porges,
president of the Zagreb Jewish Community, countered by accusing
Serbs of anti-Semitism and expressing support for the Tudjman
government.
The civil war led to great suffering and destruction,
particularly after fighting spread from Croatia to Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Jews had to flee their homes along with hundreds of thousands
of other citizens, and Jewish monuments and property were damaged
or destroyed along with countless other buildings. Among them,
the medieval synagogue in Dubrovnik was damaged by bombs; the
Jewish community center in Osijek was hit by shelling; and Serbian
fighters used the ancient Jewish cemetery overlooking Sarajevo
as a position from which to fire onto the city. In Zagreb, terrorist
bombs in August 1991 wrecked the Jewish community offices and
prayer hall and also damaged the Jewish cemetery.
Starting in April 1992, the American Jewish Joint
Distribution Committee carried out daring air and overland evacuations
of almost the entire Jewish population of Sarajevo.
Almost from the beginning of the civil strife,
communications between Zagreb, Sarajevo, and Belgrade were difficult
or cut altogether. Local Jewish communities became fully autonomous
and ultimately independent as the former Yugoslav republics became
independent. In Zagreb, gala celebrations in September 1992 marked
the reopening of the Jewish community center and prayer hall after
a full-scale restoration, partially funded by local authorities,
following a terrorist bombing of the year before.
[Ruth E. Gruber] |