Balkan Jews

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Balkan Jews refers to Jews who live or lived in the Balkans.

Contents

History

The Jewish communities of the Balkans were some of the oldest in Europe and date back to antiquity. The oldest communities of Jews in the port cities of the Balkans date back to the 4th century B.C during the reign of Alexander the Great in what would become North Macedonia. Communities continued to form in Dalmatia, Slavonia, and Serbia from the 1st century A.D., partially as a result of the First Jewish–Roman War violently put down by Emperor Titus. [1] In the medieval ages, Jews were recorded as living in Ljubljana in 1213, in Rijeka in 1346, and in Split in 1397. [2] These older Jewish communities predated the arrival of Sephardi Jews and merged with the newer populations that came from Spain and Portugal. Most Jews arrived in the Balkans in the 1490s after the Spanish Inquisition. [3] Many Ashkenazi Jews also came to the Balkans in the 1400s because of persecution in northern European countries.

Byzantine Rule

As with the majority of Jewish communities throughout history and the world, the safety of the Balkan Jews to practice their religion was set by local governments. In the seventh century, when Avars (Caucasus) attacked Split, Croatia, the Diocletian's Palace gave Jews sanctuary. [1]

Ottoman Rule

Although being classified as second class citizens along with Catholics, Roma, and Slavs, under nearly four centuries of Ottoman rule, the Jewish communities of the Balkans, considered an Eastern Sephardic heartland, had a stronger sense of communal organization and unity than other groups (i.e. North Africa) that helped maintain a sense of ethno-religious identity. [1] [4] The Jews, Muslims, and other religious minorities were exempt from the "Child Tax" which conscripted young Christian boys, brought them to Istanbul, educating them into a military force. [1]

World War II

The Jewish communities in the Balkans suffered immensely during World War II, and the vast majority were killed during the Holocaust. [1] [5] A brief overview on individual countries is below.

Croatia & Bosnia

The Jewish population of Croatia on the eve of World War II was approximately 25,000. [1] Between the World Wars, Croatian nationalists, calling themselves Ustaše, the Insurgents. The movement emphasized the need for a racially "pure" Croatia and promoted genocide against Serbs, Jews and Roma via Nazi racial theories. Its members murdered hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, and Roma as well as political dissidents in Yugoslavia during World War II. [6] [7] [8]

In 1941 the Ustaše took control of Croatia and acquired Bosnia from Germany, implementing the racial policy of Nazi Germany within its territory. They made Jews wear a yellow star on their clothing, confiscated property, and, among other requirements, closed and destroyed the synagogue in Zagreb. Between October 1941 and April 1942, Ustaše filmed themselves demolishing the building. They later destroyed most of the films as well. [1]

Through village massacres, pogroms, and the establishment of Jasenovac concentration camp, Europe's fourth largest concentration camp complex, the Ustaše murdered 85% of Jews living in Croatia and Bosnia.

Serbia

German occupied Serbia followed in step with Croatia, establishing concentration camps and extermination policies with the assistance of the puppet government of Milan Nedić. [9]

The Nazi genocide against Yugoslav Jews began in April 1941. [10] The main race laws in the State of Serbia were adopted on 30 April 1941: the Legal Decree on Racial Origins (Serbian : Zakonska odredba o rasnoj pripadnosti). Jews from Syrmia were sent to Croatian camps, as were many Jews from other parts of Serbia. In Serbia, Germans proceeded to round up Jews of Banat and Belgrade, setting up a concentration camp across the river Sava, in the Syrmian part of Belgrade, then given to Independent State of Croatia, the Sajmište concentration camp was established to process and eliminate the captured Jews and Serbs. As a result, Emanuel Schäfer, commander of the Security Police and Gestapo in Serbia, famously cabled Berlin after last Jews were killed in May 1942:

"Serbien ist judenfrei ." "Serbia is free of Jews" [11]

Similarly. Harald Turner of the SS stated in 1942 that:

"Serbia is the only country in which the Jewish question and the Gypsy question has been solved." [12]

By the time Serbia and Yugoslavia were liberated in 1944, most of the Serbian Jewry had been murdered. Of the 82,500 Jews of Yugoslavia alive in 1941, only 14,000 (17%) survived the Holocaust. [13] Of the Jewish population of 16,000 in the territory controlled by Nazi puppet government of Milan Nedić, police and secret services murdered approximately 14,500. [5] [14]

Hungary

There was a similar persecution of Jews in the territory of present-day Vojvodina, which was annexed by Hungary. In the 1942 raid in Novi Sad, the Hungarian troops killed many Jewish and non-Jewish Serb civilians in Bačka.

Historian Christopher Browning who attended the conference on the subject of Holocaust and Serbian involvement stated:

"Serbia was the only country outside Poland and the Soviet Union where all Jewish victims were killed on the spot without deportation, and was the first country after Estonia to be declared "Judenfrei", a term used by the Nazis during the Holocaust to denote an area free of all Jews."

Serbian civilians were involved in saving thousands of Yugoslavian Jews during this period. Miriam Steiner-Aviezer, a researcher into Yugoslavian Jewry and a member of Yad Vashem's Righteous Gentiles committee states that in World War II, "The Serbs saved many Jews." [15] As of 2016, Yad Vashem recognizes 131 Serbians as Righteous Among the Nations, the highest number among Balkan countries. [16]

Bulgaria

Bulgaria, who granted Jews full citizenship in 1880, who was part of the axis powers, tried to give over Bulgarian Jews to the Germans in exchange for its old territories like Thrace or North Macedonia but was met with strong popular resistance. Nevertheless, Bulgaria sent thousands of Jews from the occupied territories to Nazi concentration camps before the Bulgarians understood what the state was doing. After the war, state propaganda propagated the idea that Tsar Boris III opposed Adolf Hitler and refused to send over the Jews when he was actually the one responsible. [17] [ failed verification ]

Post World War II

Almost all of the few survivors have emigrated to the (then) newly founded state of Israel and elsewhere. [17]

Socialist Yugoslavia

The Federation of Jewish Communities in Yugoslavia was formed in the aftermath of World War II to coordinate the Jewish communities of post-war Yugoslavia and to lobby for the right of Jews to immigrate to Israel. More than half of Yugoslav survivors chose to immigrate to Israel after World War II. [17]

The Jewish community of Serbia, and indeed of all constituent republics in Yugoslavia, was maintained by the unifying power of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Yugoslavia. However, this power ended with the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Almost no Balkan country today has a significant Jewish community.[ when? ][ citation needed ]

Culture

The Dubrovnik Synagogue is Europe's second oldest synagogue, also the oldest still in use, established in 1352 in what was then the Jewish ghetto. [1] [18]

The synagogue in Zagreb was completed in 1867 created in the Moorish architecture style, but destroyed between October 1941 and April 1942. [1]

The Balkan Jews were Sephardi Jews, except in Croatia and Slovenia, where the Jewish communities were mainly Ashkenazi Jews. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the small and close-knit Jewish community is 90% Sephardic, and Ladino is still spoken among the elderly. The Sephardi Jewish cemetery in Sarajevo has tombstones of a unique shape and inscribed in ancient Ladino. Sephardi Jews used to have a large presence in the city of Thessaloniki, and by 1900, some 80,000, or more than half of the population, were Jews.

Ivo Andrić's book The Bridge on the Drina focuses on a multi-ethnic Bosnian town under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. [1] Belgrade Synagogue is currently the only fully active Jewish place of worship in Serbian capital Belgrade, created since at least 1521.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, there is only one functioning synagogue, which was rebuilt after World War II, and it is the center of Bosnian Jewish communal life. Four other synagogue buildings exist, one of which serves as the Jewish Museum. [19]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jasenovac concentration camp</span> Concentration camp run by the Ustaše in occupied Yugoslavia during World War II

Jasenovac was a concentration and extermination camp established in the village of the same name by the authorities of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) in occupied Yugoslavia during World War II. The concentration camp, one of the ten largest in Europe, was established and operated by the governing Ustaše regime, Europe's only Nazi collaborationist regime that operated its own extermination camps, for Serbs, Romani, Jews, and political dissidents. It quickly grew into the third largest concentration camp in Europe.

The Ustaše, also known by anglicised versions Ustasha or Ustashe, was a Croatian, fascist and ultranationalist organization active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945, formally known as the Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Movement. From its inception and before the Second World War, the organization engaged in a series of terrorist activities against the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, including collaborating with IMRO to assassinate King Alexander I of Yugoslavia in 1934. During World War II in Yugoslavia, the Ustaše went on to perpetrate the Holocaust and genocide against its Jewish, Serb and Roma populations, killing hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Roma, as well as Muslim and Croat political dissidents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Independent State of Croatia</span> Puppet state of Nazi Germany and protectorate of Fascist Italy within occupied Yugoslavia

The Independent State of Croatia was a World War II–era puppet state of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. It was established in parts of occupied Yugoslavia on 10 April 1941, after the invasion by the Axis powers. Its territory consisted mostly of modern-day Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as some parts of modern-day Serbia and Slovenia, but also excluded many Croat-populated areas in Dalmatia, Istria, and Međimurje regions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catholic clergy involvement with the Ustaše</span>

Catholic clergy involvement with the Ustaše covers the role of the Croatian Catholic Church in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), a Nazi puppet state created on the territory of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia in 1941.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vjekoslav Luburić</span> Croatian Ustaše official (1914–1969)

Vjekoslav Luburić was a Croatian Ustaše official who headed the system of concentration camps in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) during much of World War II. Luburić also personally oversaw and spearheaded the contemporaneous genocides of Serbs, Jews and Roma in the NDH.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Jews in Croatia</span> Ethnic group

The history of the Jews in Croatia dates back to at least the 3rd century, although little is known of the community until the 10th and 15th centuries. According to the 1931 census, the community numbered 21,505 members, and it is estimated that on the eve of the Second World War the population was around 25,000 people. Most of the population was murdered during the Holocaust that took place on the territory of the Nazi puppet state called the Independent State of Croatia. After the war, half of the survivors chose to settle in Israel, while an estimated 2,500 members continued to live in Croatia. According to the 2011 census, there were 509 Jews living in Croatia, but that number is believed to exclude those born of mixed marriages or those married to non-Jews. More than 80 percent of the Zagreb Jewish Community were thought to fall in those two categories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Jews in Serbia</span> Ethnic group

The history of the Jews in Serbia is some two thousand years old. The Jews first arrived in the region during Roman times. The Jewish communities of the Balkans remained small until the late 15th century, when Jews fleeing the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions found refuge in the Ottoman-ruled areas, including Serbia.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia</span> Genocide by the Ustashe during WWII

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jadovno concentration camp</span> WWII concentration camp in Croatia

The Jadovno concentration camp was a concentration and extermination camp in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) during World War II. Commanded by a member of the Ustaše Militia Juraj Rukavina, it was the first of twenty-six concentration camps in the NDH during the war. Established in a secluded area about 20 kilometres (12 mi) from the town of Gospić, it held thousands of Serbs and Jews over a period of 122 days from May to August 1941. Inmates were usually killed by being pushed into deep ravines located near the camp. Estimates of the number of deaths at Jadovno range from 10,000 to 68,000, mostly Serbs. The camp was closed on 21 August 1941, and the area where it was located was later handed over to the Kingdom of Italy and became part of Italian Zones II and III. Jadovno was replaced by the larger Jasenovac concentration camp and its extermination facilities.

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<i>Jasenovac – istina</i> 2016 Croatian film

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Levy, Michele (2020-08-03). "A Brief History of Balkan Jews and the Story of the Synagogue of Zagreb | Jewish Book Council". www.jewishbookcouncil.org. Retrieved 2022-08-04.
  2. ↑ Tomashevich, George Vid (1982). "Balkan Jews And Their Neighbors Before, During And Since The Holocaust: A Study In Ethno-Religious (And Ideological) Relations". Humboldt Journal of Social Relations. 10 (1): 339–363. ISSN   0160-4341. JSTOR   23261871.
  3. ↑ "Nation without a state: The Balkan Jews". staff.lib.msu.edu. Retrieved 2020-05-01.
  4. ↑ Benbassa, Esther; Rodrigue, Aron (2000). Sephardi Jewry: a history of the Judeo-Spanish community, 14th-20th centuries. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN   0-520-21822-1. OCLC   41488855.
  5. 1 2 Encyclopedia of the Holocaust / 2, [E - K]. New York: Macmillan. 1990. ISBN   978-0-02-897164-3.
  6. ↑ Hory, Ladislaus; Broszat, Martin (1964). "Der kroatische Ustascha-Staat 1941-1945". Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte. 8. doi:10.1524/9783486703757. ISBN   978-3-486-70375-7.
  7. ↑ "Croatian holocaust still stirs controversy". 2001-11-29. Retrieved 2022-08-04.
  8. ↑ "Balkan 'Auschwitz' haunts Croatia". 2005-04-25. Retrieved 2022-08-04.
  9. ↑ "An International Symposium "Southeastern Europe 1918-1995"". www.hic.hr. Archived from the original on 2019-09-04. Retrieved 2022-08-04.
  10. ↑ "Holocaust in Serbia 1941–1944". Scribd. Retrieved 2022-08-04.
  11. ↑ Lituchy, Barry M. (2006). Jasenovac and the Holocaust in Yugoslavia: Analyses and Survivor Testimonies. Jasenovac Research Institute. ISBN   978-0-9753432-0-3.
  12. ↑ Dwork, Deborah (2002). Holocaust : a history. R. J. van Pelt (1st ed.). New York: Norton. ISBN   0-393-05188-9. OCLC   49355834.
  13. ↑ "Serbia Virtual Jewish History Tour". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved 2022-08-04.
  14. ↑ Simic, Milena; Dragičevic, Vesna; Dolijanovic, Željko; Brankov, Milan; Jovanovic, Života (2021). "Značaj Presduseva Za Produktivnost Kukuruza". Zbornik Radova. University of Kragujeva, Faculty of Agronomy: 85–91. doi: 10.46793/sbt26.085s . ISBN   9788687611801. S2CID   234132552.
  15. ↑ "Why is Israel waffling on Kosovo". J. 1999-04-09. Retrieved 2022-08-04.
  16. ↑ "The Righteous Among The Nations". The Righteous Among The Nations. Retrieved 2022-08-04.
  17. 1 2 3 "Jews of the Former Yugoslavia After the Holocaust". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved 2022-08-04.
  18. ↑ "Dubrovnik Synagogue - Jewish Dubrovnik". JEWISH DUBROVNIK. 2015-05-14. Retrieved 2022-09-28.
  19. ↑ "European Jewish Congress - Bosnia-Herzegovina". 2009-01-26. Archived from the original on 26 January 2009. Retrieved 2022-08-04.
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