The first detailed report about the situation of the Jews in the various parts of Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia has reached Jewish organizations here together with an appeal to be transmitted to the Joint Distribution Committee for urgent relief.
The report, which was sent after the occupation of Yugoslavia, states that the 70,000 Jews of the country are now widely dispersed. Of them about 50,000 are in Croatia, which has been declared a semi-independent state under Nazi control and where anti-Jewish laws are being strictly enforced. Of the 12,000 Jews who lived in Belgrade, capital of Yugoslavia, before the occupation, there are now fewer than 8,000 left, the remainder having fled from the city before the Nazi invasion.
The Jews in Belgrade, as well as in the other cities now under German occupation, are being drafted for forced labor and their economic position is growing more and more precarious daily. At least half of the 8,000 Jews are reported to be homeless and is great need. According to the report, about 20,000 of the Yugoslavian Jews have been absorbed by Hungary. 10,000 are in the territory coded to Bulgaria, while several hundred Jews of Slovenia and Dalmatia are under Italian occupation. The position of the Jews in the territory occupied by Hungary is especially precarious since the Hungarian authorities have ordered them to move, without specifying destinations.
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.
