Truth from Israel

In Belgrade, a concentration camp nearly slips away

KATKA KROSNAR Jewish Telegraphic Agency

BELGRADE Wandering around the vast, neglected site straddling Belgrade's Sava river, Aleksandar Mosic admits his project is ambitious. Mosic, a former board member of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Yugoslavia, wants to recreate the Belgrade Fair exhibition ground and thus build a proper memorial to the victims of what he describes as "the forgotten concentration camp" the Sajmiste camp that the site was turned into during World War II by the occupying Nazis.


Within six months of the camp being set up in December 1941, all 8,000 Jews from Belgrade, as well as from Austria and Czechoslovakia, who had been rounded up and imprisoned there had been transported to gassing trucks and murdered at the site.


Most of these were women and children, as thousands of men had been shot dead earlier.

None of the Jews sent to the camp survived. What made Sajmiste unique was its location in clear view of Belgrade's residents.

"It is the only camp in Europe which was so visible; the inmates were not hidden from the view of the rest of the population and that was the intention; to intimidate other Serbs by showing them what was going on inside " says Mosic, chairman of the newly formed Old Fair Memorial Association and author of the book "The Jews in Belgrade." The first phase of the project would see the surviving tower reconstructed and converted into a Holocaust museum containing documents, testimonies and photographs of lost Jews from Serbia. "We want to rescue the memory of the camp and its victims," he says. "There is no monument to the Jews who died or no real education specifically about the Jewish Holocaust."


A monument was erected on the riverbank eight years ago to all 40,000 Serbs who died in the camp, but Mosic points out that there is no specific monument to the Jewish victims. One item that will definitely be missing from the museum, however, is a list of all those interned in Sajmiste, since all such lists were destroyed by the Nazis.

Before the war there were 10,400 Jews in Belgrade and roughly 16,000 in the whole of Serbia. Almost 90 percent were killed in the Holocaust.


Sajmiste was destroyed by U.S. bombers in raids, which killed 80 people at the camp and injured 170. The bombers' intended target was the nearby railway station. Davor Salom, secretary of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Serbia and Montenegro, renamed following the disintegration of Yugoslavia as a country, says the Sajmiste project will be an important contribution to the memory process.

"We are forgetting the Holocaust too quickly, and this Holocaust Museum and the reminder of what this site was will help fulfill our obligation to the memory of thousands of Serbian Jews and millions of Jews worldwide who were killed during World War II," he says.

About 700,000 killed in the Second World War with about 200, or more precisely 170, thousand killed only on the territory of Serbia are largely the victims of Nedic, Ljotic’s and other armies, chetniks included. It seems that it would now suit us to forget these victims, since they testify against the ideological movements we apparently wish to link ourselves with in the 21st century,” Dr. Dubravka Stojanovic said not long ago in a cult Radio B92 program called “Hourglass”.

Antisemitic activity in Serbia today

Antisemitic activity in Serbia is usually confined to graffiti on walls and buildings, usually belonging to Jewish individuals and organizations, but sometimes on non-Jewish ones because the perpetrators assume that the Jews control everything. Such activity was reported in many Serbian cities in 2005. For example, on 26-27 January, a memorial plate dedicated to Jewish victims of World War II in Novi Knjazevac was coated with oil paint and a swastika and the words “Jews” (Zhidovi), scrawled on it. Central Belgrade and its surroundings were covered with anti-Zionist/antisemitic posters and graffiti on 22 March. Slogans on the wall of the Jewish cemetery read: “Fight the 5 October Zionist occupation of Serbia [fall of Milosevic regime]; “B-92 is Jewish Television!” “Jewish parasites get out of Serbia”; “We want freedom and not Jewish occupation! Serbia belongs to Serbs!” Similar graffiti appeared on buildings of the Rex Cultural Center (which engages in ‘cultural decontamination’ - showing films and lectures about recent Balkan wars and Serbian responsibility for them), formerly, the Jewish Oneg Shabbat Center; the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights and the Foundation for Humanity and Law. The graffiti accused the heads of the last two institutions of being “Jewish puppets.”



In May, several buildings in the city of Zrenjanin, Vojvodina, including a restaurant with a memorial plate to the synagogue that once stood there and to Jewish victims of the Holocaust were covered with fascist and antisemitic messages. In Nish, southern Serbia, the synagogue was desecrated twice – in June and July - with antisemitic slogans such as “Death to servants of Zionism” and “Arbeit macht frei.”



In February 2005 a list of Jews living in Serbia, including their home and office phone numbers and addresses appeared on the white supremacist Stormfront site, Serbian section. Although it was eventually removed, the site continues to regularly explain the damage Jewish people do to the world in general and particularly to Serbia.


An anti-fascist meeting at the University of Novi Sad was interrupted by a group of youths who resembled skinheads. Introducing themselves as ‘the National Line’, they saluted in the Nazi fashion and harassed and insulted the speakers and audience, They were apprehended and arrested a few days later. Literature found by the police on members of the National Line indicated the neo-Nazi orientation of the group.


A brochure containing the tract “Serbs in the Claws of Jews,” by Milorad Mojic, was distributed in Novi Sad, in February. The piece was originally written in 1940/1. The author claims, inter alia, that “Jews can dishonor non-Jewish girls.”

Do Jews kill Christian children ?

"Jews kill Christian children in order to knead bread with their blood."

"In the past five years over a hundred anti-Semitic books have been published in Serbia," said Aca Singer. Some of the latest are ‘The Serbs In The Claws Of The Jew’ and ‘Jewish Ritual Murder’. The IHTUS web site features copious amounts of anti-Semitic literature and calumnies. An article entitled "Ritual Murder among Jews" repeats all the old medieval libels against Jews as killers of innocent Christians. "When a ritual murder is carried out for [the Jewish feast of] Purim,” it says, “then the victim is usually a grown-up Christian. “This blood is then dried and mixed with baking powder to make triangular cakes…. It is possible to use the dried blood left over from the murder at Purim for the upcoming Passover festival."

The IHTUS publishing house is a privately-owned company, whose headquarters are in Zabalj in Vojvodina, the northern province of Serbia.

Publisher in chief Ratibor Djurdjevic was a member of a right-wing, pre-Second World War organisation named Dimitrije Ljotic. After emigrating to the US, Djurdjevic returned to Serbia in 1990. Djurdjevic receives support from Zarko Gavrilovicn a retired priest from the SPC (Serbian Othodox Church). Djurdjevic wrote, translated and published books such as: The Elders of Zion; 3000 Years in the Service of the Satan; The Myth about the Holocaust; Judeo-Bankers and the Rise of Hitler and The Human Victim in Judaism. These books can be purchased cheaply in Belgrade, in fact, one of the bookshops specializing in such literature is located in the center, beside the Museum of Genocide. Djurdjevic expounds his views on the website, claiming his books are important for Serbs and Christians because they disclose information about "the powerful, but unrecognised rulers of the world – Jewish bankers. They are the most important collaborators of Satan in his evil enterprise against Jesus Christ." He adds that these unnamed Jewish bankers have brought much evil to the Serbs, having "started the war against the Serbs; provided assistance to the disintegrating forces in Yugoslavia; set Bosnia on fire; imposed a cruel embargo on Serbia and Montenegro; armed the Croats and Muslims... [and] demonised Serbs all over the world".

The Serbs are an obstacle to the forces of Jewish conquest in the Balkans, he argues. Djurdjevic's site promises future publications in a similar vein. Anti-Semitism in Serbia is not limited to discussions on foreign-registered websites and slogans painted anonymously on walls, however. It reaches young people through organisations such as Obraz, which target students and other young people with their hardline nationalist message.

Obraz, which means “Honour” is a right-wing movement preaching allegiance to the Serbian Orthodox Church and to Serbdom in general and encouraging passionate hostility to a list of what it calls enemies of the nation and the church. Mladen Obradovic, president of Obraz, told IWPR that Obraz’s core values were love of God and good will to people, regardless of where they come from. But their website tells a different story. A mission statement on the site contains a strongly-worded "Proclamation to the Enemies of Obraz", who are defined as "Zionists, converts to Islam, Ustashe [Croat fascists], democrats, false pacifists, perverts, criminals and drug addicts".

The above groups "shall be justly punished, because they should not be allowed to ruin the health of Serbian youth", the proclamation adds menacingly.

Obradovic was more nuanced in describing Obraz’s stance on Jews to IWPR.

“Because we are Christians, we cannot and do not want to hide the truth that many Euro-Atlantic powerful people of Jewish origin have revealed themselves as open enemies of the Serbian people,” he said.

According to a survey in 2003 by the Belgrade Centre for Studying Alternatives, a think-tank specialising in tracking public opinion, anti-Semitism was more widespread in Serbia than many once thought. Nine per cent of respondents openly declared themselves as anti-Semites, while another 31 per cent said they were undecided, the survey said.Many people on the street seem confused in their understanding of history and ready to blame Jews for their country’s recent setbacks.

One taxi driver told IWPR that “Hitler was Jewish and the fact that they [the Nazis] killed millions of their own people is evidence of how bad they are”.

He said Jews were responsible for the destruction of Yugoslavia because “Tito was Jewish”. He added, “The Jews wanted to destroy Yugoslavia for their own economic interests”.

Another woman interviewed on the street said Jews exaggerated the dangers of anti-Semitism for their own benefit. “Jews use anti-Semitism on purpose to gain privileges for themselves,” she said.

“Anti-Semites are people who feel unfulfilled, so they often identify strongly with their own race,” he said. “These people suffer from inferiority complexes and seek an identity in the collective, embracing extremist theories in the process.”

Facts about Serbian-Jewish Friendship

On her blog Julia write about some Serbian-Jewish friendship as some common history relationship. Here is quote:

When that happened, Lalich says, “there was a big campaign to separate the Serbs and the Jews, because people knew there was a common history and a lot of historical parallels.”

The “friendship” in the name of the society is no accident, she says: Serbs and Jews have had a long-standing and friendly relationship, and in Belgrade, where the largest Jewish community was, Jews enjoyed cordial relations with non-Jewish Serbs.

Lets see some historical facts Julia forget to mention.

The physical liquidation of Serbian Jews began immediately in the spring of 1941. Almost all the men were killed by the autumn and the women and children and the remaining men were liquidated at the end of April and the beginning of May, 1942. The exact number of people killed is not known even from Jewish sources. Historian Jasa Romano, however, has come to the conclusion that 88% of all Serbian Jews were killed. The Serbian historian Sretenije Zrokić says that of the 11,870 Belgrade Jews only 1,115 or 9% survived the war. It was not only the Germans who captured and killed the Jews in Serbia, rather it was the Serbian Police, Nedić's volunteers and Chetniks . Most were killed in the Sajmište and Banjica concentration camps. Not a single Jew managed to escape from the camps.

Source: Ljubica Stefan, Anti-semitism in Serbia during the World War II
# Judein Grei Ljubica Stefan is retired professor: refugee from Belgrade where she lived for 30 years, researches genocide against Albanians, anti-Semitism and persecution of Jews, as well as the behavior of Serbia and the Serbian Orthodox Church in World War II.


The Chetniks and the Jews

At the initial stage, there were some Jews among the Chetniks, but when it turned out that the Chetniks were not fighting the invaders and their collaborators, and in fact were inclined to cooperate with them, the Jews switched to the ranks of the partisans. As the Chetniks increased their cooperation with the Germans, their attitude toward the Jews in the areas under their control deteriorated, and they identified the Jews with the hated Communists. There were many instances of Chetniks' murdering Jews or handing them over to the Germans.

The Destruction of the Jews

The German military administration in Serbia implemented the extermination of the Jews in its area with dispatch and thoroughness. In the very first days of the occupation the Jews were ordered to register, and anti - Jewish regulations were issued. For several months afterward, most of the male Jews were put on forced labor. After the outbreak of the revolt in Serbia in July 1941, all the male Jews were put in concentration camps, most of them in Topovske Šupe, and others in Šabac and in Niš.

During four centuries of Ottoman rule in the Balkans, the Jewish communities of Serbia enjoyed religious tolerance, internal autonomy, and equality before the law, that ended with the breakup of the Ottoman Empire and the emergence of the Serbian state.

Soon after a Serbian insurrection against Turkish rule in 1804, Jews were expelled from the interior of Serbia and prohibited from residing outside of Belgrade. In 1856 and 1861, Jews were further prohibited from travel for the purpose of trade. In official correspondence from the late 19th century, British diplomats detailed the cruel treatment of the Jews of Serbia, which they attributed to religious fanaticism, commercial rivalries, and the belief that Jews were the secret agents of the Turks. Article 23 of the Serbian constitution granted equality to every citizen but Article 132 forbade Jews the right of domicile.

The Treaty of Berlin 1878, which formally established the Serbian state, accorded political and civil equality to the Jews of Serbia, but the Serbian Parliament resisted abolishing restrictive decrees for another 11 years. Although the legal status of the Jewish community subsequently improved, the view of Jews as an alien presence persisted.

Although Serbian historians contend that the persecution of the Jews of Serbia was entirely the responsibility of Germans and began only with the German occupation, this is self- serving fiction. Fully six months before the Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia, Serbia had issued legislation restricting Jewish participation in the economy and university enrolment.

One year later on 22 October 1941, the rabidly antisemitic "Grand Anti-Masonic Exhibit" opened in occupied Belgrade, funded by the city of Belgrade. The central theme was an alleged Jewish-Communist-Masonic plot for world domination. Newspapers such as Obnova (Renewal) and Nasa Borba (Our Struggle) praised this exhibit, proclaiming that Jews were the ancient enemies of the Serbian people and that Serbs should not wait for the Germans to begin the extermination of the Jews. A few months later, Serbian authorities issued postage stamps (see picture bellow) commemorating the opening of this popular exhibit. These stamps, which juxtaposed Jewish and Serbian symbols, portrayed Judaism as the source of world evil and advocated the humiliation and violent subjugation of Jews.


Serbia as well as neighboring Croatia was under Axis occupation during the Second World War. Although the efficient destruction of Serbian Jewry in the first two years of German occupation has been well documented by respected sources, the extent to which Serbia actively collaborated in that destruction has been less recognized. The Serbian government under General Milan Nedic worked closely with local Nazi officials in making Belgrade the first "Judenfrei" city of Europe. As late as 19 September 1943, Nedic made an official visit to Adolf Hitler (see picture bellow), Serbs in Berlin advanced the idea that the Serbs were the "Ubermenchen" (master race) of the Slavs.



Indeed, with Nazi blessings, Nedic established the Serbian State Guard, numbering about 20,000, compared to the 3,400 German police in Serbia. Recruiting advertisements for the Serb police force specified that "applicants must have no Jewish or Gypsy blood". Nedic's second in command was Dimitrije Ljotic, founder of the Serbian Fascist Party and the principal Fascist ideologist of Serbia. Ljotic organized the Serbian Volunteers Corps, whose primary function was rounding up Jews, Bosniaks, Gypsies, and partisans for execution. Serbian citizens and police received cash bounties for the capture and delivery of Jews.

The list goes on and on and Julia still sings same old story trying to convince readers that Serbs are good guys and friends of Jews. What a disgrace.... Read first Julia ... READ