The Holocaust in German-occupied Serbia was part of the European-wide
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 ...
, the
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...
against
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, which occurred in the
Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia
The Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia (german: Gebiet des Militärbefehlshabers in Serbien; sr, Подручје Војног заповедника у Србији, Područje vojnog zapovednika u Srbiji) was the area of the Kin ...
, the
military administration
Military administration identifies both the techniques and systems used by military departments, agencies, and armed services involved in managing the armed forces. It describes the processes that take place within military organisations outsid ...
of the
Third Reich
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
established after the
April 1941 invasion of Yugoslavia. The crimes were primarily committed by the German occupation authorities who implemented
Nazi racial policies, assisted by the
collaborationist forces of the successive
puppet government
A puppet state, puppet régime, puppet government or dummy government, is a state that is ''de jure'' independent but ''de facto'' completely dependent upon an outside power and subject to its orders.Compare: Puppet states have nominal sover ...
s established by the Germans in the occupied territory.
Immediately after the occupation, the occupation authorities introduced racial laws, labeling Jews and
Romani
Romani may refer to:
Ethnicities
* Romani people, an ethnic group of Northern Indian origin, living dispersed in Europe, the Americas and Asia
** Romani genocide, under Nazi rule
* Romani language, any of several Indo-Aryan languages of the Roma ...
as ''
Untermensch
''Untermensch'' (, ; plural: ''Untermenschen'') is a Nazi term for non- Aryan "inferior people" who were often referred to as "the masses from the East", that is Jews, Roma, and Slavs (mainly ethnic Poles, Serbs, and later also Russians). The ...
'' ("sub-humans"). They also appointed two Serbian civil
puppet governments to carry out administrative tasks in accordance with German direction and supervision.
Jews were the primary target but Romani were also targeted for elimination. The perpetrators of the Holocaust was the Nazi German ''Wehrmacht'' stationed in German-occupied Serbia. The main engine of extermination was the regular German army.
[Misha Glenny. ''The Balkans: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers, 1804-1999''. Page 502: "The Nazis were assisted by several thousand ethnic Germans as well as by supporters of Dijmitrje Ljotic's Yugoslav fascist movement, Zbor, and General Milan Nedic's quisling administration. But the main engine of extermination was the regular army. The destruction of the ]Serbian Jews
The history of the Jews in Serbia is some two thousand years old. The Jews first arrived in the region during Roman times. The Jewish communities of the Balkans remained small until the late 15th century, when Jews fleeing the Spanish and Por ...
gives the lie to ''Wehrmacht'' claims that it took no part in the genocidal programmes of the Nazis. Indeed, General Bohme and his men in German-occupied Serbia planned and carried out the murder of over 20,000 Jews and Gypsies without any prompting from Berlin" They carried out operations with the assistance of
Milan Nedić
Milan Nedić ( sr-Cyrl, Милан Недић; 2 September 1878 – 4 February 1946) was a Yugoslav and Serbian army general and politician who served as the chief of the General Staff of the Royal Yugoslav Army and minister of war in the R ...
's
puppet government
A puppet state, puppet régime, puppet government or dummy government, is a state that is ''de jure'' independent but ''de facto'' completely dependent upon an outside power and subject to its orders.Compare: Puppet states have nominal sover ...
and
Dimitrije Ljotić
Dimitrije Ljotić ( sr-cyr, Димитрије Љотић; 12 August 1891 – 23 April 1945) was a Serbian and Yugoslav fascist politician and ideologue who established the Yugoslav National Movement (Zbor) in 1935 and collaborated with Ge ...
's fascist organization
Yugoslav National Movement
The Yugoslav National Movement ( sh, Jugoslavenski narodni pokret / Југословенски народни покрет), also known as the United Militant Labour Organization (''Združena borbena organizacija rada'' / ''Здружена бор ...
(Zbor), which had joint control over the
Banjica concentration camp
The Banjica concentration camp (german: KZ Banjica, sr-Cyrl-Latn, Бањички логор, Banjički logor) was a Nazi Germany, Nazi German Nazi concentration camps, concentration camp in the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia, the ...
in Belgrade along with the German
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
. The murders were primarily carried out in
concentration camps
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...
and
gas van
A gas van or gas wagon (russian: душегубка, ''dushegubka'', literally "soul killer"; german: Gaswagen) was a truck reequipped as a mobile gas chamber. During the World War II Holocaust, Nazi Germany developed and used gas vans on a large ...
s. In May 1942, occupied Serbia became one of the first territories declared ''
judenfrei
''Judenfrei'' (, "free of Jews") and ''judenrein'' (, "clean of Jews") are terms of Nazi origin to designate an area that has been "cleansed" of Jews during The Holocaust.
While ''judenfrei'' refers merely to "freeing" an area of all of its ...
''. The Nazis systematically murdered approximately 18,000
Serbian Jews
The history of the Jews in Serbia is some two thousand years old. The Jews first arrived in the region during Roman times. The Jewish communities of the Balkans remained small until the late 15th century, when Jews fleeing the Spanish and Por ...
in the occupied territory.
The main Holocaust perpetrators in Serbia - Nazi German officers
Harald Turner
Harald Turner (8 October 1891 – 9 March 1947) was an SS commander and ''Staatsrat'' (privy councillor) in the German military administration of the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia in the partitioned Kingdom of Yugoslavia durin ...
,
August Meyszner
August Edler von Meyszner (3 August 1886 – 24 January 1947) was an Austrian Gendarmerie officer, right-wing politician, and senior ''Ordnungspolizei'' (order police) officer who held the post of Higher SS and Police Leader in the Germ ...
and
Johann Fortner
Johann Fortner (25 November 1884 – 26 February 1947) was a German ''Generalleutnant'' during World War II who commanded the 718th Infantry Division from its formation in May 1941 until he was relieved in March 1943. During his command the divisi ...
- were extradited after the war to Yugoslavia, where they were tried and executed. Milan Nedić was imprisoned by the Yugoslav authorities, but committed suicide soon after, while Ljotić was killed in a car accident. As of 2019, 139 Serbians have been recognized as
Righteous Among the Nations
Righteous Among the Nations ( he, חֲסִידֵי אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם, ; "righteous (plural) of the world's nations") is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to sav ...
.
Background
![Territory Of The German Military Commander In Serbia 1941-44](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Territory_Of_The_German_Military_Commander_In_Serbia_1941-44.png)
Yugoslav Foreign Secretary
Anton Korošec
Anton Korošec (, ; 12 May 1872 – 14 December 1940) was a Yugoslav politician, a prominent member of the conservative People's Party, a Roman Catholic priest and a noted orator.
Early life
Korošec was born in Biserjane (then Duchy of Styr ...
, who was
Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
priest and leader of
Slovenia
Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...
n conservatives, stated in September 1938, that "Jewish issue did not exist in Yugoslavia…. Jewish refugees from the Nazi Germany are not welcome here." In December 1938 Rabbi Isaac Alkalai, the only Jewish member of government was dismissed from the government.
On 25 March 1941,
Prince Paul of Yugoslavia signed the
Tripartite Pact
The Tripartite Pact, also known as the Berlin Pact, was an agreement between Germany, Italy, and Japan signed in Berlin on 27 September 1940 by, respectively, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Galeazzo Ciano and Saburō Kurusu. It was a defensive milit ...
, allying the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Kraljevina Jugoslavija, Краљевина Југославија; sl, Kraljevina Jugoslavija) was a state in Southeast Europe, Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 unt ...
with the
Axis powers
The Axis powers, ; it, Potenze dell'Asse ; ja, 枢軸国 ''Sūjikukoku'', group=nb originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis, was a military coalition that initiated World War II and fought against the Allies. Its principal members were ...
. The Pact was extremely unpopular, particularly in Serbia and Montenegro, and demonstrations broke out. On 27 March, Serb military officers overthrew Prince Paul. The new government withdrew its support for the Axis, but did not repudiate the
Tripartite Pact
The Tripartite Pact, also known as the Berlin Pact, was an agreement between Germany, Italy, and Japan signed in Berlin on 27 September 1940 by, respectively, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Galeazzo Ciano and Saburō Kurusu. It was a defensive milit ...
. Nevertheless, Axis forces, led by
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
invaded Yugoslavia in April 1941.
The Axis forces partitioned Serbia, with Hungary, Bulgaria, Italy and the Independent State of Croatia occupying and annexing large areas. In central Serbia the Germans occupiers established the
Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia
The Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia (german: Gebiet des Militärbefehlshabers in Serbien; sr, Подручје Војног заповедника у Србији, Područje vojnog zapovednika u Srbiji) was the area of the Kin ...
(''Gebiet des Militärbefehlshabers in Serbien''), the only area of partitioned Yugoslavia under direct German military government, with the day-to-day administration of the territory controlled by the German Chief of the Military Administration. The German Military Commander in Serbia appointed a Serbian civil puppet government to carry out administrative tasks in accordance with German direction and supervision. The police and army of the puppet government were placed under German commanders.
In July 1941, a major
uprising
Rebellion, uprising, or insurrection is a refusal of obedience or order. It refers to the open resistance against the orders of an established authority.
A rebellion originates from a sentiment of indignation and disapproval of a situation and ...
began in Serbia against the German occupiers, which included the establishment of the
Republic of Užice
The Republic of Užice ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Užička republika, Ужичка република) was a short-lived liberated Yugoslav territory and the first liberated territory in World War II Europe, organized as a military mini ...
, the first liberated territory in World War II Europe. At Hitler's personal command to crush the resistance, the German military started executing tens-of-thousands of Serb civilians, among whom they included thousands of Jews. To assist in quelling the rebellion the German occupiers in August 1941 put in place the puppet government of
Milan Nedić
Milan Nedić ( sr-Cyrl, Милан Недић; 2 September 1878 – 4 February 1946) was a Yugoslav and Serbian army general and politician who served as the chief of the General Staff of the Royal Yugoslav Army and minister of war in the R ...
, which was also given responsibility for many Holocaust-related activities, including the registration and arrest of Jews and joint control over the
Banjica concentration camp
The Banjica concentration camp (german: KZ Banjica, sr-Cyrl-Latn, Бањички логор, Banjički logor) was a Nazi Germany, Nazi German Nazi concentration camps, concentration camp in the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia, the ...
in
Belgrade
Belgrade ( , ;, ; Names of European cities in different languages: B, names in other languages) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers a ...
.
The Holocaust
Anti-Semitic regulations
![Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-185-0112-08, Belgrad, Erfassung von Juden](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-185-0112-08%2C_Belgrad%2C_Erfassung_von_Juden.jpg)
On 13 April 1941, before the
Royal Yugoslav Army
The Yugoslav Army ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Jugoslovenska vojska, JV, Југословенска војска, ЈВ), commonly the Royal Yugoslav Army, was the land warfare military service branch of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (originally Kingdom of Serbs ...
formally capitulated, Wilhelm Fuchs – Chief of the Einsatzgruppen based in Belgrade – ordered the registration of the city's Jews.
His order stated that all those who did not register would be shot.
Shortly after, Field Commander Colonel von Keisenberg issued a decree which limited their freedom of movement. On 29 April 1941, the Chief of the German Military Administration in Serbia,
Harald Turner
Harald Turner (8 October 1891 – 9 March 1947) was an SS commander and ''Staatsrat'' (privy councillor) in the German military administration of the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia in the partitioned Kingdom of Yugoslavia durin ...
issued the order to register all Jews and Gypsies throughout German-occupied Serbia. The order prescribed the wearing of yellow armbands, introduced forced labor and curfew, limited access to food and other provisions and banned the use of public transport.
On 30 May, the
German Military Commander in Serbia,
Helmuth Förster, issued the main race laws - The Regulation Concerning Jews and Gypsies (''Verordnung Betreffend Die Juden Und Zigeuner''), which defined who is considered Jewish and Gypsy. The law excluded Jews and Roma from public and economic life, their property was seized, they were obliged to register in special lists (''Judenregister and Zigeunerlisten'') and for forced labor. In addition, the order prescribed the obligatory wearing of yellow tape for Jews and Roma, and prohibited them from working in public institutions or in professions such as law, medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine and pharmacy, as well as visiting cinemas, theaters, entertainment venues, public baths, sports fields and markets.
Beginning of persecution
![Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-185-0112-28, Belgrad, Erfassung von Juden](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-185-0112-28%2C_Belgrad%2C_Erfassung_von_Juden.jpg)
Already in the initial days of the occupation, members of the German
Einsatzgruppe
(, ; also 'task forces') were (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe. The had an integral role in the imple ...
Jugoslawien started breaking into and looting Jewish businesses. Later these businesses were confiscated, per German anti-Semitic regulations, often turned over to the control of local
Volksdeutsche
In Nazi German terminology, ''Volksdeutsche'' () were "people whose language and culture had German origins but who did not hold German citizenship". The term is the nominalised plural of '' volksdeutsch'', with ''Volksdeutsche'' denoting a sin ...
. All other Jewish real estate and personal property, plus religious properties, were also confiscated. A special form of theft was “the contribution”, amounting to 12 million dinars, which Belgrade Jews were forced to pay, for the “damages to Germans of the April War, which the Jews caused”. In addition, the Germans forced Belgrade Jews to pay 1,400,000 dinars into a “Fund for the suppression of Jewish-Communist actions”. Germans and Volksdeutsche mistreated and beat Jews on the streets, while in Belgrade Volksdeutsche and
Ljotić-ites captured older Jews, bestially mistreating them. Germans, with the help of
Volksdeutsche
In Nazi German terminology, ''Volksdeutsche'' () were "people whose language and culture had German origins but who did not hold German citizenship". The term is the nominalised plural of '' volksdeutsch'', with ''Volksdeutsche'' denoting a sin ...
and
Ljotić-ites destroyed and desecrated Jewish temples. The Germans conscripted all Jewish men between ages 14 and 60, and all Jewish women between 16 and 40, to perform forced labor for 17 and 18 hours a day, without rest. They were forced to do the most difficult work, including remove with their bare hands the debris and bodies left from the extensive German bombardment of Belgrade. Those who could not keep up, were shot by the German guards.
The killing of Jewish men
![Jajinci prisoner](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Jajinci_prisoner.jpg)
The destruction of Serbian Jews by the Nazi Germans was carried out in two distinct phases. The first, which lasted between July and November 1941, involved the murder of Jewish men, who were shot as part of retaliatory executions carried out by German forces in response to the rising anti-Nazi, partisan insurgency in Serbia. In October 1941. the German general, Franz Böhme, ordered the execution of 100 civilians for every German soldier killed and 50 for every wounded.
Böhme's order stated that hostages are to be drawn from "all Communists, people suspected of being Communists, all Jews, and a given number of nationalist and democratically minded inhabitants". Altogether some 30,000 Serbian civilians were executed by the Nazi's during the first 2 months of this policy,.
among them 5,000 Jewish men, or nearly all the Jewish males above age 14 in Serbia and the Banat.
![Logor Crveni Krst, Niš - 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Logor_Crveni_Krst%2C_Ni%C5%A1_-_2.jpg)
By the end of Summer 1941, the Gestapo and local
Volksdeutsche
In Nazi German terminology, ''Volksdeutsche'' () were "people whose language and culture had German origins but who did not hold German citizenship". The term is the nominalised plural of '' volksdeutsch'', with ''Volksdeutsche'' denoting a sin ...
had already rounded up all the Jews in the Banat and transferred them to the
Topovske Šupe and
Sajmište concentration camps. The Germans carried out the first arrest of hostages in Belgrade in April 1941. From August to November 1941 Germans rounded up adult Jewish males from the rest of Serbia, and interred them at Topovske Šupe. These formed the main reservoir of Jewish hostages to be shot as part of the German reprisal policy of executing Serbian civilians. From there the Germans took and executed the Jews at killing grounds at Jajinci, Jabuka (near Pančevo), etc,. 500 Banat Jews were executed at Deliblatska peščara in the south Banat, while some Jews were killed as part of mass German executions elsewhere, like the
Kragujevac
Kragujevac ( sr-Cyrl, Крагујевац, ) is the fourth largest city in Serbia and the administrative centre of the Šumadija District. It is the historical centre of the geographical region of Šumadija in central Serbia, and is situated on ...
and
Kraljevo massacre
The Kraljevo massacre was the World War II mass murder of approximately 2,000 residents of the city of Kraljevo in the German-occupied territory of Serbia between 15 and 20 October 1941 by the German Army. The massacre came in reprisal for a joi ...
s. Thus, by the November of 1941 “there were almost no living male Jews who could be used as hostages.”
The killing of women and children
![Destroyed Magirus-Deutz furniture transport van Kolno Poland 1945](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Destroyed_Magirus-Deutz_furniture_transport_van_Kolno_Poland_1945.jpg)
The second genocidal activity, between December 1941 and May 1942, involved the incarceration of the women and children at the
Semlin, or Sajmište concentration camp and their gassing in a mobile gas van called a
Sauerwagen. The German concentration camp, in the old fairgrounds or
Staro Sajmište
Staro Sajmište ( sr-cyr, Старо Сајмиште, Old Fairground) is an urban neighborhood of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is located in Belgrade's municipality of New Belgrade, and it was the site of the World War II Sajmište concen ...
, near
Zemun
Zemun ( sr-cyrl, Земун, ; hu, Zimony) is a municipality in the city of Belgrade. Zemun was a separate town that was absorbed into Belgrade in 1934. It lies on the right bank of the Danube river, upstream from downtown Belgrade. The developme ...
was established across the Sava river from Belgrade, on the territory of the
Independent State of Croatia
The Independent State of Croatia ( sh, Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH; german: Unabhängiger Staat Kroatien; it, Stato indipendente di Croazia) was a World War II-era puppet state of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy (1922–1943), Fascist It ...
, to process and eliminate the captured Jews, Serbs,
Roma
Roma or ROMA may refer to:
Places Australia
* Roma, Queensland, a town
** Roma Airport
** Roma Courthouse
** Electoral district of Roma, defunct
** Town of Roma, defunct town, now part of the Maranoa Regional Council
*Roma Street, Brisbane, a ...
, and others.
On 8 December 1941, all remaining Belgrade Jews were ordered to report to the offices of the ''Judenreferat'' (Gestapo Jewish Police) in George Washington Street. After handing over the keys to their homes, the Germans took them via the pontoon bridge over the Sava to the newly established
Judenlager Semlin. 7,000 Jewish women and children were thus interred in the bombed-out camp fairgrounds over a brutal winter, when hundreds started to die.
The first victims of the German gas van were the staff and patients at the two Jewish hospitals in Belgrade. Over two days in March 1942, the Germans loaded over 800 people, mostly patients, into the gas van, in groups of between 80 and 100. They died of carbon-monoxide poisoning as the van drove to the killing grounds in
Jajinci
Jajinci ( sr-cyrl, Јајинци, ) is an List of Belgrade neighborhoods, urban neighborhood located in the municipality of Voždovac, in Belgrade, Serbia. It was the site of the worst carnage in Serbia during World War II when German occupational ...
. After the Jewish hospitals were emptied, the destruction of the Jewish women and children at Semlin began. As the historian Christopher Browning explains:
Between 19 March and 10 May, the drivers, Götz and Meyer, accompanied by the camp commander
Herbert Andorfer, made between 65 and 70 trips between Semlin and Jajinci, killing 6,300 Jewish inmates. Of the almost 7000 Jews interned at Semlin, fewer than 50 women survived. The victims of the camp included 10,600 Serbs and uncounted
Romani
Romani may refer to:
Ethnicities
* Romani people, an ethnic group of Northern Indian origin, living dispersed in Europe, the Americas and Asia
** Romani genocide, under Nazi rule
* Romani language, any of several Indo-Aryan languages of the Roma ...
. Gendarmes of
Milan Nedić
Milan Nedić ( sr-Cyrl, Милан Недић; 2 September 1878 – 4 February 1946) was a Yugoslav and Serbian army general and politician who served as the chief of the General Staff of the Royal Yugoslav Army and minister of war in the R ...
,
Dimitrije Ljotić
Dimitrije Ljotić ( sr-cyr, Димитрије Љотић; 12 August 1891 – 23 April 1945) was a Serbian and Yugoslav fascist politician and ideologue who established the Yugoslav National Movement (Zbor) in 1935 and collaborated with Ge ...
and
Chetniks
The Chetniks ( sh-Cyrl-Latn, Четници, Četnici, ; sl, Četniki), formally the Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Army, and also the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland and the Ravna Gora Movement, was a Yugoslav royalist and Serbian nationa ...
by September 1944 captured about 455 remaining Jews in Serbia who were handed over to the Banjica camp where they were immediately killed.
The destruction of the Kladovo Transport
![Kladovo transport monument](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Kladovo_transport_monument.jpg)
In December 1939, ships carrying about 1,200 Jewish refugees, mostly from Austria and Germany, landed in
Kladovo
Kladovo ( sr-Cyrl, Кладово, ; ro, Cladova or ) is a town and municipality located in the Bor District of Southern and Eastern Serbia, eastern Serbia. It is situated on the right bank of the Danube river. The population of the town is 8,91 ...
, on Serbia’s border with Romania. Fleeing the Nazis, they were travelling the Danube to the Black Sea to reach Palestine, but due to British limitations on Jewish emigration to Palestine, the Romanian authorities refused them passage. At first they lived onshore and aboard the ships at Kladovo, with aid provided by the Belgrade Jewish community. In September 1940, they were resettled to the Serbian town of Šabac, some moving into private homes, others living in community facilities. Welcomed by the Mayor and locals, they resumed cultural, educational and religious activities; some young men joined the city soccer team.
In April 1941, when the Germans invaded Serbia, they incarcerated Kladovo transport and local Jews in an internment camp near town. In September 1941, as part of retaliations for a Partisan attack on Šabac, the Germans took the Jewish men on a 46 kilometer, forced “bloody march”, during which they killed 21 stragglers.
In October 1941, Wehrmacht squads shot the rest of the Jewish men, as part of executions of 2,100 hostages in retaliation for 21 German soldiers killed by Partisans.
In January 1942 the Germans took the women and children to Zemun, then forced them to march 10 kilometers through the snow to the
Sajmište concentration camp
The Sajmište concentration camp () was a Nazi German concentration and extermination camp during World War II. It was located at the former Belgrade fairground site near the town of Zemun, in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). The camp was ...
, with some infants dying along the way. With the exception of two Kladovo transport women who managed to survive, all were later murdered by the Germans via asphyxiation in gas vans, together with Jewish women and children from across Serbia.
The Holocaust in the Banat
Local ethnic German
Danube Swabian or
Shwovish authorities in
Banat
Banat (, ; hu, Bánság; sr, Банат, Banat) is a geographical and historical region that straddles Central and Eastern Europe and which is currently divided among three countries: the eastern part lies in western Romania (the counties of T ...
helped carry out the Holocaust in that area of German-occupied Serbia. Approximately 4,000 to 10,000 Jews from the Banat were deported to the German military authorities in Serbia by the local ethnic German authorities under
Sepp Janko
Josef "Sepp" Janko (; 9 November 1905 25 September 2001) was a Volksgruppenführer ("Group Leader") of the Danube Swabian German Cultural Association ('' Schwäbisch-Deutschen Kulturbundes'') in Yugoslavia in 1939, and later was appointed SS ...
to be killed in German concentration camps, including
Sajmište and others.
Role of the ''Wehrmacht''
Although the ''Wehrmacht'', after the war, stated that it took no part in the genocidal programmes, General Böhme and his men planned and executed the slaughter of over 20,000 Jews and Gypsies without any signal from Berlin.
[ As Tomasevich notes:
A German soldier wrote after the war, 'the shooting of Jews bore no relation to the Partisan attacks': the retaliations merely provided 'an alibi for the extermination of the Jews'.] Chief of the Military Administration in Serbia, Harald Turner, justified the killing of Jews along Serb hostages, by practicality ('they he Jews
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
are the ones we have in the camp' and 'the Jewish question solves itself most quickly in this way'), adding that 'he Jews
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
are also Serbian citizens and they have to disappear'. By the time of the Wannsee Conference, the German military had already killed nearly all the Jewish men in Serbia and the Banat, and had herded the Jewish women and children into the Sajmiste concentration camp, in preparation for their extermination in the Spring of 1942.
The SS-commander Harald Turner, Chief of the German military administration in Serbia summed up how the Nazis carried out the genocide of Serbian Jews
The history of the Jews in Serbia is some two thousand years old. The Jews first arrived in the region during Roman times. The Jewish communities of the Balkans remained small until the late 15th century, when Jews fleeing the Spanish and Por ...
:
While the Germans were exclusively responsible for attempted extermination the Jews of Serbia proper, they were assisted by local collaborators in the Nedić government and others, who helped round up the Jews, Romani and Serbs who opposed the German occupation. Dimitrije Ljotić
Dimitrije Ljotić ( sr-cyr, Димитрије Љотић; 12 August 1891 – 23 April 1945) was a Serbian and Yugoslav fascist politician and ideologue who established the Yugoslav National Movement (Zbor) in 1935 and collaborated with Ge ...
founded a Serbian pro-Nazi and pan-Serbian
Serbian nationalism asserts that Serbs are a nation and promotes the cultural and political unity of Serbs. It is an ethnic nationalism, originally arising in the context of the general rise of nationalism in the Balkans under Ottoman rule, und ...
fascist party Zbor. It was very active organization that published a large quantity of extreme anti-Semitic literature. The military wing of Zbor, the so-called Serbian Voluntary Guard actively supported the Gestapo in the elimination of Jews.
Emanuel Schäfer, commander of the Security Police and Gestapo in Serbia, convicted in Germany in 1953 for the death van killings of 6.000 Serbian Jews at Sajmiste, famously cabled Berlin after last Jews were killed in May 1942:
Similarly Harald Turner of the SS, later executed in Belgrade for his war crimes, stated in 1942 that:
By the time Serbia and eastern parts of Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
were liberated in 1944, most of the Serbian Jewry had been murdered. Of the 82,500 Jews of Yugoslavia alive in 1941, only 14,000 (17%) survived the Holocaust.[Virtual Jewish History Tour – Serbia and Montenegro](_blank)
/ref> Of the Serbian Jewish population of 16,000, the Nazis murdered approximately 14,500.[''Encyclopedia of the Holocaust'', Macmillan Publishing Company New York 1990]
Historian Christopher Browning who attended the conference on the subject of Holocaust and Serbian involvement stated:
Collaborationist role
To assist in the fight against the growing Partisan-led resistance in Serbia, the German military set up an entirely subservient, collaborationist administration, with limited power, under Milan Nedić
Milan Nedić ( sr-Cyrl, Милан Недић; 2 September 1878 – 4 February 1946) was a Yugoslav and Serbian army general and politician who served as the chief of the General Staff of the Royal Yugoslav Army and minister of war in the R ...
. While the Germans fully directed the Holocaust in Serbia, and carried out the mass-killing of Jews, collaborationist forces assisted in a number of ways. At German command the quisling Special Police registered Jews, and enforced Nazi regulations, like wearing of yellow stars. Later the German military performed mass round-ups of Jews to take them to concentration camps, but relied on quisling forces to find and capture Jews who managed to elude the round-ups. Thus from 1942 to 1944 collaborationist forces captured and turned over at least 455 Jews to the Germans. Some Jews who hid in the countryside were killed and robbed by Chetniks
The Chetniks ( sh-Cyrl-Latn, Четници, Četnici, ; sl, Četniki), formally the Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Army, and also the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland and the Ravna Gora Movement, was a Yugoslav royalist and Serbian nationa ...
.
The Germans and collaborationists jointly ran the Banjica concentration camp
The Banjica concentration camp (german: KZ Banjica, sr-Cyrl-Latn, Бањички логор, Banjički logor) was a Nazi Germany, Nazi German Nazi concentration camps, concentration camp in the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia, the ...
, where among the 23,697 recorded inmates, 688 were Jews. The Gestapo killed 382 of these Jews in Banjica, taking the rest to other concentration camps. Collaborationists, particularly members of the fascist Zbor, carried out anti-Semitic propaganda, while Chetnik
The Chetniks ( sh-Cyrl-Latn, Четници, Četnici, ; sl, Četniki), formally the Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Army, and also the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland and the Ravna Gora Movement, was a Yugoslav royalist and Serbian nationa ...
propaganda claimed that the Partisan
"The Partisan" is an anti-fascist anthem about the French Resistance in World War II. The song was composed in 1943 by Russian-born Anna Marly (1917–2006), with lyrics by French Resistance leader Emmanuel d'Astier de La Vigerie (1900–1969) ...
resistance consisted of Jews. Following the Nazi extermination of most Serbian Jews, a Nedić collaborationist document noted that "owing to the occupier, we have freed ourselves of Jews, and it is now up to us to rid ourselves of other immoral elements standing in the way of Serbia’s spiritual and national unity".
The Germans placed the Banat
Banat (, ; hu, Bánság; sr, Банат, Banat) is a geographical and historical region that straddles Central and Eastern Europe and which is currently divided among three countries: the eastern part lies in western Romania (the counties of T ...
region under the control of local, German-minority collaborationists. These performed the first mass round-ups of Serbian Jews, sending local Jews to German concentration camps near Belgrade, where they were among the first to be killed by German forces.
Number of victims
Of the Jewish population of 16,000 in German-occupied Serbia, the Nazis murdered approximately 14,500. Citing Jasa Romano, Tomasevich notes that from Serbia Proper, the Germans killed 11,000 Jews, plus an additional 3,800 Jews from the German-minority-controlled, Banat region.
According to Jelena Subotić, of the 33,500 Jews who lived in Serbia pre-occupation, around 27,000 were killed in the Holocaust. In German-occupied Serbia approximately 12,000 of the 17,000 Jews were killed very early into the war, including almost all 11,000 Belgrade Jews.
According to Yugoslav experts and post-war reports by Yugoslav government commissions, almost all Jews from Serbia, including the Banat, appeared to have been killed. Those Jews who joined the Partisans survived as well as Jewish members of the Royal Yugoslav Army captured in the invasion who ended up in Germany as prisoners of war. This means that the number of murdered Jews is around 16,000 while Romano in his latest estimates reduced that number to 15,000 killed.
German concentration camps in occupied Serbia
* Sajmište concentration camp
The Sajmište concentration camp () was a Nazi German concentration and extermination camp during World War II. It was located at the former Belgrade fairground site near the town of Zemun, in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). The camp was ...
* Banjica concentration camp
The Banjica concentration camp (german: KZ Banjica, sr-Cyrl-Latn, Бањички логор, Banjički logor) was a Nazi Germany, Nazi German Nazi concentration camps, concentration camp in the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia, the ...
* Topovske Šupe concentration camp
* Crveni Krst concentration camp
The Crveni Krst concentration camp (lit. Red Cross concentration camp; german: KZ Crveni Krst; sr, Логор Црвени крст, Logor Crveni krst), also known as the Niš concentration camp (german: Lager Nich), located in Crveni Krst, Niš, ...
Help given by Serbian civilians
As of 2019, Yad Vashem recognizes 139 Serbians as Righteous Among the Nations
Righteous Among the Nations ( he, חֲסִידֵי אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם, ; "righteous (plural) of the world's nations") is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to sav ...
. The numbers of Righteous are not necessarily an indication of the actual number of rescuers in each country, but reflect the cases that were made available to Yad Vashem. Jaša Almuli, former president of the Jewish Association in Belgrade, wrote that the number of saved Jews was not higher because the occupying forces introduced the cruellest regime in Europe, besides the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, which included the retaliation laws and prescribed executions. Raphael Lemkin
Raphael Lemkin ( pl, Rafał Lemkin; 24 June 1900 – 28 August 1959) was a Polish lawyer who is best known for coining the term ''genocide'' and initiating the Genocide Convention, an interest spurred on after learning about the Armenian genocid ...
noted that Serbs were forbidden to help Jews by orders which provided the death penalty
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
for sheltering or hiding Jews or accepting and buying objects of value from them.
Restitution of properties
Serbia is the first country in Europe which adopted a law for restitution of properties of Jewish heirless victims of the Holocaust. According to this law, besides this restitution, Serbia will make 950,000 EUR annual payment from its budget to the Union of Jewish Municipalities starting from 2017. The World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO) praised the adoption of this law while its chair of operations invited other countries to follow Serbia's example. The Embassy of Israel in Serbia issued a release welcoming the adoption of this law and emphasizing that Serbia should be an example for other countries in Europe. The release of the Embassy of Israel concluded: "The new law is a noble act of a great country that will breathe new life into the small Jewish community that it is today."
Revisionism in Serbia
During the 1990s, the role Nedić and Ljotić played in the extermination of Serbia's Jews was downplayed by several Serbian historians. In 1993, the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts ( la, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Serbica, sr-Cyr, Српска академија наука и уметности, САНУ, Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti, SANU) is a national academy and the ...
listed Nedić among ''The 100 most prominent Serbs
''The 100 most prominent Serbs'' ( sr-Cyrl, 100 најзнаменитијих Срба) is a book containing the biographies of the hundred most important Serbs compiled by a committee of academicians at the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. ...
''.
In 2006 a portrait of Milan Nedić
Milan Nedić ( sr-Cyrl, Милан Недић; 2 September 1878 – 4 February 1946) was a Yugoslav and Serbian army general and politician who served as the chief of the General Staff of the Royal Yugoslav Army and minister of war in the R ...
was hung along with those of other Serbian heads of State in the Government of Serbia building. This and other attempts at rehabilitating Nedić met with sharp criticism, including from Aleksandar Lebl, head of the Association of Jewish Communities of Serbia who stated "Nedić was anti-Semitic, as were his government, police and armed forces – all these took part in the persecution of Jews, only the initiators and executors were German." In 2009 Nedić’s portrait was removed after the initiative made by Ivica Dačić
Ivica Dačić ( sr-cyr, Ивица Дачић, ; born 1 January 1966) is a Serbian politician serving as first deputy prime minister of Serbia and minister of foreign affairs since 2022, roles which he previously served under governments of Mirk ...
.
Following the breakup of Yugoslavia
The breakup of Yugoslavia occurred as a result of a series of political upheavals and conflicts during the early 1990s. After a period of political and economic crisis in the 1980s, constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yu ...
, local councillors in Smederevo campaigned to have the town's largest square named after Ljotić. The councillors defended Ljotić's wartime record and justified the initiative by stating that " ollaborationnbsp;... is what the biological survival of the Serbian people demanded" during World War II. Later, the Serbian magazine ''Pogledi
''Pogledi'' (Serbian Cyrillic: ''Погледи'', meaning Viewpoints in English) was a Serbia-based magazine devoted to politics and history, published biweekly.''Pogledi'', issue number 70, November 9–23, 1990. YU ISSN 0353-3832 ''Pogledi'' was ...
'' published a series of articles attempting to exonerate Ljotić. In 1996, future Yugoslav President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
Vojislav Koštunica
Vojislav Koštunica ( sr-cyrl, Војислав Коштуница, ; born 24 March 1944) is a Serbian former politician who served as the last president of FR Yugoslavia from 2000 to 2003 and as the prime minister of Serbia from 2004 to 2008.
...
praised Ljotić in a public statement. Koštunica and his Democratic Party of Serbia
The New Democratic Party of Serbia ( sr, Нова демократска странка Србије, Nova demokratska stranka Srbije, , NDSS or New DSS) is a national-conservative political party in Serbia.
Initially known and formed as Democ ...
(''Demokratska stranka Srbije'', DSS) actively campaigned to rehabilitate figures such as Ljotić and Nedić following the overthrow of Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević (, ; 20 August 1941 – 11 March 2006) was a Yugoslav and Serbian politician who was the president of Serbia within Yugoslavia from 1989 to 1997 (originally the Socialist Republic of Serbia, a constituent republic of ...
and his socialist government in October 2000.
See also
* Anti-Freemason Exhibition
The Grand Anti-Masonic Exhibition (german: Anti-Freimaurer-Ausstellung, sr, script=Latn, Antimasonska izložba) was the name of an antisemitic exhibition that was opened on October 22, 1941 during World War II in Belgrade, the capital of the Nazi ...
* History of the Jews in Serbia
The history of the Jews in Serbia is some two thousand years old. The Jews first arrived in the region during Roman times. The Jewish communities of the Balkans remained small until the late 15th century, when Jews fleeing the Spanish and Po ...
* Trostruki surduk Trostruki surduk is the name of a place in Belgrade, Serbia, between Bežanija and Surčin, where the mass murder of 240–450 Jews during World War II was organized. The exact number of murdered people, date of execution and the concentrati ...
References
Notes
Footnotes
Bibliography
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External links
Holokaust u Srbiji
Browning, Christopher R. (1983). «The Final Solution in Serbia; The Semlin Judenlager — A Case study». Yad Vashem Studies 15: pp. 55–90.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Holocaust in Serbia
Yugoslav Serbia
Jewish Serbian history
Serbia in World War II
Persecution of Serbs
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 ...
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 ...
War crimes in Serbia