Search JTA's historical archive dating back to 1923

JTA Correspondent Visits “death Camp” in Yugoslavia Where Germans Massacred 16,000 Jews

January 2, 1945
See Original Daily Bulletin From This Date
Advertisement

The Government radio station today broadcast a report by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency correspondent, Welwel Pomeranico, on “Jewish death camps” in Yugoslavia, built by the Germans in the village of Yanki, eight miles from Belgrade, from which Pomeranies has just returned.

The correspondent was taken by the Yugoslav authorities to a large fenced yard which was used before the war by the Yugoslav Army to train snipers. The Germans converted it into a center for the execution of Jews. The Jews were brought to the yard in closed vans called “Maritzas” by the local people. They were then ordered to take off their clothes and to dig ditches while naked. When the ditches were dug, the Jews were forced into them and were machine-gunned by soldiers of the victorious German Prince Eugen Division.

More than 16,000 Yugoslav Jews were slaughtered in this way at the Yanki “extermination camp,” the JTA correspondent established. He spoke to some of the surviving Jews in Belgrade who expressed thanks for food parcels sent to them from Palestine. A delegation of the reconstituted Jewish community in Belgrade is planning to proceed to Sofia in order to establish contact between the surviving Jews in Yugoslavia and these of Bulgaria.

Recommended from JTA

Advertisement