Lest we forget
An excerpt from book by: Ms.
Ruth Mitchell,
The Serbs choose war
Published by: Garden City;
New York; 1943
pp 260-264
Document
IV
ANONYMOUS
Source: Letter written
by a Jewish physician, professor in the Department of Medicine in the University
of Belgrade, to a friend in London on his escape from Yugoslavia
in 1942. As the writer is a Jew, for the sake of relatives who remain in
Yugoslavia his name cannot be used:
"In Yugoslavia there were
85,000 Jews, induding Jewish emigrees from Germany, Austria, Poland and
Czechoslovakia. Thanks to the Serbs, the Yugoslav
Jews had succeeded in saving and rescuing many of their compatriots from
Germany and German-occupied countries. Service rendered and
assistance given to Jews by Yugoslav consular officials in Austria and
Czechoslovakia has specially to be recognized. Of the total number of Jews
in Yugoslavia about 7,500 were refugees.
"The Jews in Yugoslavia
were divided into Sephards, and Eskenasis [Ashkenazis]. The Sephards lived
principally in Belgrade and Serbia, also in south Serbia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina.
The Eskenasis principaly settled in Croatia, Slavonia, and the Voivodina.
After the partition of Yugoslavia the Jews came under the rule of various
regimes, including Pavelich's `Independent Croatian State'.
The
`solution' of the Jeiwish question in the Independent Croatia devolved
upon the Croatian Ustashis. In Serbia, however, the Jewish problem was
not dealt with by the Serbs themselves. This the Germans reserved for themselves.
There are special reasons for this. When they occupied Serbia, the Germans
did not find any anti-Semitic feeling in the country. They could not persude
either the local population or the local autorities to take any anti-Semitic
measures.
"The fact that Nedich twice
demanded from the Gernan commanding officer in Serbia and the Banat that
he and his government should be given the right to settle the Jewish problem,
against whom no drastic measures should and could be taken in Serbia, shows
the feeling of the Serbian people toward the Jews. The following reasons
were given by Nedich to the Germans for this demand. If the Germans wanted
the Serbs to calm down, it would be of first importance to stop the terrible
persecution of the Serbian Jews. The Serbian people
could not and would not accept such treatement `of their compatriots of
the Jewish religion.' The Serbs consider Jews as their brothers, only of
a different religion. The answer which Nedich reccieved from
the Germans reg arding this demand was 'that the Serbs have not attained
a culture to the degree necessary to enable them to deal with the Jews.
We ourselves shall settle the Jewish question in Serbia.'
"With regard to anti-Semitism,
Yugoslavia can be divided into two parts, i.e., districts where this feeling
was latent, and Serbia, where, it can
be said without any exaggeration, anti-Semitic
feeling has never had any root.
"During
Yugoslavia's twenty-three years of existence, Serbia has always professed
the free democratic tradition existing in the former Kingdom of Serbia.
There in the nineteenth century, and later in the twelfth, the
Jews alwalys had full civic rights and complete equality with their Serbian
compatriots. This equality was not only granted in various constitutions
of the Kingdom of Serbia and later of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, but it
was also a true expression of the relationship between the Orthodox Serbs
and the Jews in their everyday contact. This friendly and amicable relationship
also existed in the economic, financial, and political life in Serbia.
The small group of Jews living in Serbia gave their contribution towards
the cultural and politicall life in Serbia's struggle for the formation
of a state of South Slavs. The Jews had in Serbia members of Parliament.
In Serbia's struggle for liberation, the Jews gave their contribution.
Several were awarded the Karadgeorge Star for bravery in the battlefield
- equivalent to the British V.C.
"About a year before Yugoslavia
was attacked by Germany, by pressure from the Reich and in their attempt
to suit their policy to the dictators, the Tsvetkovich-Machek Government
passed the first anti-Semitic measure in Yugoslavia. The Government was
not unanonimous on this point. Dr. Koroshets, leader of the Slovenes, upheld
the measure as Minister of Education. Serbian cabinet ministers, however,
induding the Minister of War, refused to apply the act. The application
of it was confined to the Ministry of Education, under the Slovene Dr.
Koroshets, and the Ministry of Trade and Industry, under the Croat Dr.
Andres.
"In all the schools and
universities, numerous restrictions were applied by circular, but in Serbia
Serb teachers and professors succeeded in avoiding or sabotaging the regulations.
"In this regard Serbia completely
differed from Croatia under Dr. Machek and the district governor or Ban,
Shubashich. In Croatia anti-Semitism was inherited
from Austria-Hungary. Antisemitic centers had always existed.
Dr. Shubashitch's Croatia had even prepared elaborate laws and regulatios
just before the war broke out in Yugoslavia in 1941. A large part of the
industries in Jewish hands in Croatia was to be confiscated and nationalized.
Anti-Semitism was particularly stressed in Croatia by the right wing of
Dr. Machek's Croatian Peasant Party.
"This report could be divided
into two parts - the first beginning with the entry of German troops into
Belgrade in April 1941 to the beginning of August 1941; the second from
the middle of August 1941 until the closing down of the office of the 'Jewish
section' late in 1942. The section was closed because there were no longer
any Jews in occupied Serbia. During the first stage the Jews were tortured,
persecuted, maltreated, taken for forced labor. Well-known Jews and Serbs
were taken to German concentration camps. Women of the intelligentsia class
were forced to clean latrines in the German barracks, to clean floors and
sweep streets under the supervision of the S.S. troops. They were made
to clean the windows of high houses from the outside, and severall of them
lost their lives through falling down. Jewish girls were violated and taken
to `Militar-Medi'. Already during the first stage the Jews were deprived
of all their property and most of them were evicted from their homes.
"In the second period male
Jews were sent to concentration camps. But quite
a number of men and young Jews succeeded in escaping to the villages, where
they lived with Serbian peasant families. A
number later joined the guerrillas. A considerable number of youths
from the Jewish Zionist organization, which co-operated with the Serbian
organizations for the preparation of resistance, actively helped the guerrilla
fighters. Many collected hospital materiall for the guerrillas or posted
anti-German posters in Belgrade streets. The name of Almozmo, a schoolboy
of ten, the son of a well-known Belgrade dispensing chemist in ing. Peter
Street, should be mentioned. He threw bombs at two armored German cars
and a tank in Grobljanska Street in Belgrade and blew them up. His elder
brother, a medical student, is still fighting in Bosnia, in spite of the
order that the mayor and members of the rural councils would be shot if
such cases were discovered in their villages.
"Some forty of my relatives
were shot in Belgrade by the Germans. I am, however, very proud to say
that today two small relatives of mine, one of five and one of seven years
of age, whose parents were shot by the Gestapo, are being hidden by two
Serbian mothers.
No German
measures in Belgrade were able to upset the friendly relations between
the Serbs and Jews. During the forced-labor period Serbs talked
to their Jewish friends in the streets even in front of the German soldlers
and police. During the period well over 300,000
Serbs were massacred by the Croat Ustashi in Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Lika
and some 60,000 shot by the Germans in Serbia, during
the period when Serbian students and peasants were hung in the main square
in Belgrade, the Serbs of the capital had sufficient courage to protest
publicly their indignation at the treatment of the Jews.
"When Jewish women were
transported in lorries to the concentration camps, Serb shopkeepers in
the streets through which these processions passed closed their shops and
their houses, thus expressing not only their protest, but also emphasizing
the fact that the entire population of Serbia, yesterday and today, does
not and cannot participate in the extermination of their Jewish neighbors.
"The
example of the Serbian people with regard to the Jews is unique
in Europe, particularly in the southern
part of the continent. In spite of intensive German propaganda in writing
and through the wireless, the Serbs remained unafected. When we consider
what happened to the Jews in neighboring countries, in the "Independent
State of Croatia," Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria, the Serbian example
shines out.
"Today there are no more
Jews left in Serbia, except some children hidden by the Serbs and those
fighting along with the Serbs in the forests. I saved my own life thanks
to my Serbian friends. I was saved from certain death. Serbian peasants
and my other friends also saved from death my only son, who was on several
occasions sought by the Gestapo in Belgrade.
"It is my desire as a Jew
and as a Serb that in free democratic countries where Jews
are still enjoying full freedom and equality they should
show gratitude to the Serbian people, pointing out their noble acts, their
humane feelings, and their high civic consciousness and culture....
"I
cannot conclude this report without mentioning how the Serbian Orthodox
Church, the Patriarch Gavrilo, and his clergy tried to save Serbian Jews
and Gypsies. Up to the present day the Germans have massacred
I70,000 Gypsies, men, women, and children, in Serbia and the Banat. Serbian
Orthodox priests and the Serbian peasantry riskied their lives not only
to save ordinary Jews and their children but also to save those Gypsies
and their children. Today the chief rabbi of Yugoslav Jews lives in America.
He was saved from the Gestapo, being smuggled out from Serbia from monastery
to monastery by the Serbian clergy. He was handed over by one Serbian church
to another, by one Serbian priest to another until he was passed on to
Bulgarian territory. There, with the assistance of the Orthodox Bulgarian
clergy, some of whom were his personal friends, he arrived at the Turkish
frontier."
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[ Ruth Mitchell
"The Serbs choose war" ]
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Last revised: Nov. 26, 1997
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