Fearing German invasion , the12,000 Jews of Zagreblargest Jewish population of any Yugoslav city today were making every effort to evacuate into the interior.
The exodus of Jews from the Croatian city near the German and Italian frontiers was spurred by anonymous telephone threats received by Zagreb Jewish leaders in the past few days. The warnings, spoken in German , told them to leave the city “before the day of reckoning arrives.”Zagreb has a large German population which is predominantly pro -Nazi .
The office of the Zionist Organization in Zagreb received anonymous calls warning of massacres”like those which took place in Bucharest.”Some of the callers concluded their messages with anti- Jewish tirades and ended with ” Heil Hitler !”
Rushing to seek safety in Belgrade and in other parts of the interior , many Zagreb Jews left behind their immovable property and part of their movable goods. They paid large sums for any means of transportation , traveling in automobiles, peasant carts and horse- drawn wagons.
Meanwhile, in Belgrade the 8,000 Jews remained calm, despite the influx from the frontier areas. Most of the Jews of Belgrade are poor artisans of Turkish and Near Eastern origin. Of the 75,000 Jews in Yugoslavia , half are located in Belgrade , Zagreb and Sarajevo. There is a small number of Jews in Slovenia and virtually none in Montenegro.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
