The Rab Battalion was a unit of the Yugoslav partisans during the Second World War. It was formed by and from Jewish survivors of Rab concentration camp upon their liberation in September 1943.
Rab concentration camp was one of the Italian concentration and internment camps during World War II. [1] It opened in July 1942 near the village of Kampor, on the Adriatic island of Rab (Italian : Arbe). The camp was liberated after the armistice with Italy in September 1943, [2] whereupon about 245 Jewish survivors formed the Partisans' Rab battalion intending to fight Nazi German forces occupying Yugoslavia. [3]
With the help of local partisans, who sent a ship to the island, the battalion was transferred to the Croatian mainland on September 17, 1943. The battalion originally comprised some 245 Jews aged 15–30 with little or no military training, and one medical unit with 35 women who offered to serve as nurses. With those who joined later, there were 691 members of the Jewish battalion. In addition to the fighters, about 3,000 Jews from the Rab camp — almost all of them women, elderly and children — were shipped from the island to the mainland by the Partisans and dispersed into territories held by them. The recorded total of 204 Jews who remained behind in the Rab camp, most of them very old or sick, were transported to Auschwitz when the Germans came to the island. None survived. [3]
After walking north for 16 days over mountains and through forest, the Jewish fighters joined the 7th Partisan Division. [3] In addition to the battalion, 648 former inmates of the concentration camp joined the Partisan movement, meaning that from the Rab camp 1,339 former inmates joined the People's Liberation War. [4] The battalion took part in heavy fighting against Germany's and the Independent State of Croatia's forces in the Croatian regions of Banovina, Kordun and Lika, and due to severe losses suffered the battalion had to be disbanded and its members absorbed by other Partisan units.
The Yugoslav Partisans, or the National Liberation Army, officially the National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia, was the communist-led anti-fascist resistance to the Axis powers in occupied Yugoslavia during World War II. Led by Josip Broz Tito, the Partisans are considered to be Europe's most effective anti-Axis resistance movement during World War II.
The Rab concentration camp was one of several Italian concentration camps. It was established during World War II, in July 1942, on the Italian-annexed island of Rab.
Italian war crimes have mainly been associated with the Kingdom of Italy, Fascist Italy and the Italian Social Republic starting from the Italo-Turkish War then to Pacification of Libya, the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, the Spanish Civil War, and World War II.
During World War II, resistance movements operated in German-occupied Europe by a variety of means, ranging from non-cooperation to propaganda, hiding crashed pilots and even to outright warfare and the recapturing of towns. In many countries, resistance movements were sometimes also referred to as The Underground.
The Banjica concentration camp was a Nazi German concentration camp in the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia, the military administration of the Third Reich established after the Invasion and occupation of Yugoslavia during World War II. In response to escalating resistance, the German army instituted severe repressive measures – mass executions of civilian hostages and the establishment of concentration camps. Located in the Banjica neighborhood of Dedinje—a suburb of Belgrade—it was originally used by the Germans as a center for holding hostages. The camp was later used to hold anti-fascist Serbs, Jews, Roma, captured Partisans, Chetniks and other opponents of Nazi Germany. By 1942, most executions occurred at the firing ranges at Jajinci, Marinkova Bara and the Jewish cemetery.
The Sajmište concentration camp was a Nazi German concentration and extermination camp during World War II. It was located at the former Belgrade fairground site near the town of Zemun, in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). The camp was organized and operated by SS Einsatzgruppen units stationed in occupied Serbia. It became operational in September 1941 and was officially opened on 28 October of that year. The Germans dubbed it the Jewish camp in Zemun. At the end of 1941 and the beginning of 1942, thousands of Jewish women, children and old men were brought to the camp, along with 500 Jewish men and 292 Romani women and children, most of whom were from Niš, Smederevo and Šabac. Women and children were placed in makeshift barracks and suffered during numerous influenza epidemics. Kept in squalid conditions, they were provided with inadequate amounts of food and many froze to death during the winter of 1941–42. Between March and May 1942, the Germans used a gas van sent from Berlin to kill thousands of Jewish inmates.
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The Slovene Home Guard was a Slovene anti-Partisan collaborationist militia that operated during the 1943–1945 German occupation of the formerly Italian-annexed Slovene Province of Ljubljana. The Guard consisted of former Village Sentries, part of Italian-sponsored Anti-Communist Volunteer Militia, re-organized under Nazi command after the Italian Armistice of September 1943.
Jewish partisans were fighters in irregular military groups participating in the Jewish resistance movement against Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II.
World War II in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia began on 6 April 1941, when the country was invaded and swiftly conquered by Axis forces and partitioned among Germany, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria and their client regimes. Shortly after Germany attacked the USSR on 22 June 1941, the communist-led republican Yugoslav Partisans, on orders from Moscow, launched a guerrilla liberation war fighting against the Axis forces and their locally established puppet regimes, including the Axis-allied Independent State of Croatia (NDH) and the Government of National Salvation in the German-occupied territory of Serbia. This was dubbed the National Liberation War and Socialist Revolution in post-war Yugoslav communist historiography. Simultaneously, a multi-side civil war was waged between the Yugoslav communist Partisans, the Serbian royalist Chetniks, the Axis-allied Croatian Ustaše and Home Guard, Serbian Volunteer Corps and State Guard, Slovene Home Guard, as well as Nazi-allied Russian Protective Corps troops.
The history of the Jews in Kosovo largely mirrors that of the history of the Jews in Serbia, except during the Second World War, when Kosovo, as part of Kingdom of Albania, was under Italian control and later under German control. The other exception is following the Kosovo War of 1999, when the province began its political separation from Serbia.
Josip Srebrnič, also spelled Srebrnić, was a Slovene Roman Catholic prelate who spent most of his career in Croatia.
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Ivan Rein was a Croatian-Jewish painter.
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Otto Miskolczy was a Croatian entrepreneur and World War II Partisan.
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The Lepoglava concentration camp was a concentration camp in the Independent State of Croatia during World War II. It was located 25 km southwest of Varaždin and operated by Ustaše, a Croatian fascist,(Megargee & White 2018, p. 70)</ref> In July 1943, it was briefly captured by Yugoslav Partisans.
Borgo San Dalmazzo was an internment camp operated by Nazi Germany in Borgo San Dalmazzo, Piedmont, Italy.