The renovated Jewish Community Center at Skopje, which was badly damaged during the 1963 earthquake there, will be inaugurated October 11 and renamed in memory of Dr. Albert Vajs, late president of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Yugoslavia, it was announced here today.
The Center is located on Eleventh of March Street, a thoroughfare named in memory of the date, in 1943, when 7,000 Macedonian Jews were deported to Treblinka. None of the deportees survived. Prior to World War II, Skopje had several thousand Jews. Now there are 60 Jews there; those who survived the Nazi holocaust have emigrated, mainly to Israel. Participants in the Center inauguration ceremonies will include officials of the Yugoslav Government and leaders of the Jewish community.
It was also announced here today that from October 15 to October 17, a special celebration will be held at Sarajevo to mark the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Jews in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Sarajevo — where the assassination of a duke triggered World War I in 1914 –had, prior to World War II, one of the oldest and largest Jewish communities in Yugoslavia, with more than 10,000 Jews. Now there are 1,300 Jews in Sarajevo, which is still one of the largest of Jewish communities in the country.
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