History of Yugoslavian Jewry Published in Belgrade

The World Jewish Congress reported this week that a major work documenting the history of Yugoslav Jews during the Second World War has been issued in Belgrade by the local Jewish community.

The Federation of Jewish Communities in Yugoslavia, under the auspices of the Jewish Historical Museum in Belgrade, published the 590-page volume by Jasa Romano entitled “Jews of Yugoslavia 1941-1945: Victims of Genocide and Freedom Fighters.” Written in Serbo-Croatian, the book also contains a 17 page summary in English. The Federation, the central representative body of Yugoslav Jewry, is a member community of the WJC.

The historical account begins with the first Jewish settlers in that area dating back 2,000 years ago and traces the history of the Jewish community before World War II. The main part of the book is devoted to a detailed description of the Jewish community’s fate under Nazi domination. It describes the deportation to concentration camps, and ends with the fact that of about 82,000 members of the Jewish community in Yugoslavia only 15,000 survived World War II, “which means 79.2% perished.”

JEWS AS FREEDOM FIGHTERS

The second section is devoted to what Romano calls the “shining pages which will tell to all future generations that the Yugoslav Jews did not propose to remain passive.” There follows a description of the participation of Jews in the ranks of the Yugoslav Freedom Fighters.

According to the available data 4,556 Jews participated in the War of National Liberation, 2,897 in the Yugoslov Army of National Liberation (720 fell) and 1,569 in the underground Movement of National Liberation (599 perished). Of those who joined the Army of National Liberation and survived 150 are holders of the “Partisan Star 1941,” and 10 are on the list of Peoples’ Heroes. Fourteen Jews reached the rank of general, — of them, two lieutenant generals, two major generals, and 10 brigadier generals.