Greta Ferušić Weinfeld (26 June 1924 – 23 January 2022) was a Bosnian professor & dean of architecture at the University of Sarajevo. Greta was the only Bosnian woman to survive

Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

and the only person in the world to survive both Auschwitz and the

Siege of Sarajevo The Siege of Sarajevo ( sh, Opsada Sarajeva) was a prolonged blockade of Sarajevo, the capital of Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, during the Bosnian War. After it was initially besieged by the forces of the Yugoslav ...

Biography

Ferušić was born and raised in

Novi Sad Novi Sad ( sr-Cyrl, Нови Сад, ; hu, Újvidék, ; german: Neusatz; see below for other names) is the second largest city in Serbia and the capital of the autonomous province of Vojvodina. It is located in the southern portion of the Pan ...

(now in Vojvodina,

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe, Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Bas ...

), to a wealthy Bosnian Jewish family.Sarajevo: A Bosnian Kaleidoscope
Fran Markowitz. She was 19 years old when she, her parents, two aunts, and an uncle were sent in April 1944 to

. When the camp was liberated by the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...

on 27 January 1945, she weighed . She was the only member of her family to survive the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

After the Holocaust

After the war, she returned to

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

and started studying Architecture in Belgrade, then later in Paris. In Belgrade she married Seid Ferušić,Greta Weinfeld Ferušić
Internacionalna inicijativa žena Bosne i Hercegovine. a secular

Bosniak The Bosniaks ( bs, Bošnjaci, Cyrillic: Бошњаци, ; , ) are a South Slavic ethnic group native to the Southeast European historical region of Bosnia, which is today part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who share a common Bosnian ancestry, cu ...

, and moved to town of

Sarajevo Sarajevo ( ; cyrl, Сарајево, ; ''see Names of European cities in different languages (Q–T)#S, names in other languages'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its a ...

in 1952. She applied to be a teaching assistant at the University of Sarajevo where she also continued her studies. She later became the first woman to graduate there. After graduation, she became a professor at the Faculty of Architecture, then later she was awarded to be the dean of the Architecture and directed various projects of architecture in the republic of Yugoslavia.

Siege of Sarajevo

Refusing to be dislocated when the

siege of Sarajevo The Siege of Sarajevo ( sh, Opsada Sarajeva) was a prolonged blockade of Sarajevo, the capital of Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, during the Bosnian War. After it was initially besieged by the forces of the Yugoslav ...

began in April 1992, Greta and her husband shared in the fate of their city, but insisted that her son, his wife, and their children leave the city when a special convoy for evacuating the Jews of the city was organized on 15 November 1992 by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. She was interviewed for the Bosnian TV channel Hayat TV in 1994 for a documentary called ''Od Auscwitza do Sarajeva'' ("From Auschwitz to Sarajevo"). In February 2004, Ferušić was awarded the Polish

Auschwitz Cross The Auschwitz cross is a cross erected near the Auschwitz concentration camp, in Oświęcim County, Poland, which was erected to commemorate the 74,000 Polish Catholics who died at the concentration camp as a consequence of the Nazi German occu ...

( Krzyż Oświęcimski), a Polish decoration awarded to honour survivors of Nazi concentration camps. She was the last person to receive this medal.

''Greta''

In 1997,

Haris Pašović Haris Pašović (born 16 July 1961) is a Bosnian theatre director. Over the course of his career, he has also worked as a playwright, producer, choreographer, performer, and designer. He is best known for his productions of Wedekind's “ Spring A ...

produced and directed a biographical film, ''Greta'', about her.Greta Ferusic
.

San Francisco Jewish Film Festival San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is the oldest Jewish film festival in the world, and currently the largest with a 2016 attendance figure of 40,000 at screenings in San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, San Rafael, and Palo Alto. The three-week summe ...

The film producers received a grant of the

Charles Stewart Mott Foundation The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation is a private foundation founded in 1926 by Charles Stewart Mott of Flint, Michigan. Mott was a leading industrialist in Flint through his association with General Motors. The foundation administers funds thr ...

to transform it from video format to a professional 35mm film format. The film has been shown in different film festivals, such as

Avignon Avignon (, ; ; oc, Avinhon, label=Provençal dialect, Provençal or , ; la, Avenio) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Vaucluse Departments of France, department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region of So ...

, New York, London,

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, Rome,

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

Ljubljana Ljubljana (also known by other historical names) is the capital and largest city of Slovenia. It is the country's cultural, educational, economic, political and administrative center. During antiquity, a Roman city called Emona stood in the ar ...

and others.ARCHIVES 2015 / Haris Pašović
. Avignon Film Festival

Personal life

In 1948, she married her university classmate Seid, a Bosnian Muslim, and they settled in Sarajevo and had a son. Her husband died in 2007. Ferušić died at her residence in Sarajevo on 23 January 2022, at the age of 97.

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Ferusic, Greta 1924 births 2022 deaths Auschwitz concentration camp survivors Bosnia and Herzegovina Jews Recipients of the Auschwitz Cross University of Sarajevo alumni Academic staff of the University of Sarajevo Yugoslav Jews People from Novi Sad Bosnia and Herzegovina architects Bosnia and Herzegovina women architects