Anti-Semitic slogans scrawled at WWII death camp

AP via JPost ^ | Feb. 16, 2006

[Revenge of Sith]

There was a Serb puppet government headed by Milan Nadic while ethnic cleansing of Serbs was directed at Serbs living in Croatia.

[Nachum]

Do you believe Jews are free from the taint of hatred or above lies

No. We are not free from hatred or lies either.

Now I have another book on the waiting list at the L.A. public library to read. It is now placed on hold. I am also going to sites that go into detail about the Serbs and WWII. (http://www.srpska-mreza.com/index.htm) It spends a lot of energy attacking the Croats and Catholics of Croatia. It doesn't completely damn the Bosnians, but comes close.

Any more titles on the subject and history would be appreciated.

[joan]

I think the Italian troops were the protectors of Jews, and Jews in Croatia and other parts tried to make their way to the Italian-controlled areas.

Many Jews went into hidding or escaped, I belive.

The best way to find the truth would be to find individuals or their relatives who can tell you in detail, just what transpired and how they were treated by specific people.

Also, the Hungarians were known to kill the Jews, and they were in Serbia, killing both Serbs and Jews. Then you had the ethnic German residents of Serbia - Volksdeutch (sp) - who joined with the invading Germans. If they were residents of Serbia or born in Serbia, they could technically be called "Serbians". Therefore you have to be careful when there is blame for Serbians that they are ethnic Serbs. To be assured of that, you'd have to get their names.

[Witch-king of Angmar]

Were all the Jews in Serbia murdered only by Nazis and Muslims? Well, let us see what a real historian has to say about that! Excerpts from Raul Hilberg's "The Destruction of the European Jews":

Page 684: The Serbs dislike foreign domination in practically any form, and German-occupied Serbia was consequently the scene of continuous partisan warfare. ...in Serbia, German army reacted to the rebellious outbreaks by shooting hostages, especially Jewish hostages...

During the late summer of 1941,... two camps were set up, one in Belgrade, the other in Sabac. At the same time, systematic roundups of Jewish men were set in motion in the entire Serbian territory. Aparently the [German] military was already beginning to think in terms of large-scale shootings of Jews.

...At the beginning of September a traveling envoy from Berlin joined Foreign Office Plenipotentiary Benzler in Belgrade. The traveler was Edmund Veesenmayer, a party member, businessman, and Foreign Office troubleshooter. On September 8, 1941, Veesenmayer and Benzer ...proposed that 8,000 Jewish men be removed from Serbia, perhaps in barges moving downstream on the Danube to the delta of the river in Romania...

Page 685: ...Expert in Jewish affairs, Rademacher... turned to Adolf Eichman. The RSHA's expert on Jewish affairs had a remedy: "Eichman proposes shooting."

Page 686: On October 2, 1941, things were already hapenning in Serbia. At town in Topola a truck convoy of Company 2, 521st Signal Batallion, was ambushed by partisans. Twenty-one men were killed immediately; another died later. Two days later General Bohme instructed the 342d Division and the 449th Signal Batallion to shoot 2,100 inmates of the Sabac and Belgrade camps. The ice was broken.

On October 10 Bohme decided to go all the way. He ordered the "sudden" (schlagartige") arrest of all Communists and suspected Communists, "all Jews", and a "certain number" of "nationally and democratically inclined inhabitants." The arrested victims were to be shot according to the following key: for every dead German soldier or ethnic German, a hundred hostages; for every wounded German soldier or ethnic German, fifty hostages. (This was the key Bohme had applied to the Topola ambush.) Limiting the role of the SS in the killing, Bohme specified that the shootings were to be carried out by the troops and that if possible, the executions were to be performed by the units that suffered the losses. Straight revenge...

Page 688: In a private letter written by Staatsrat Turner [the chief of civil administration under Bohme] to the Higher SS and Police leader in Danzing, Gruppenfuhrer Hildebrandt, on October 17, 1941, he wrote: "...for murdered Germans, on whose account the ratio 1:100 should really be borne by Serbs, 100 Jews are shot instead; but the Jews we had in the camps - after all, they too are Serb nationals,..."

Page 690: While the German army was completing the shooting of 4,000 to 5,000 men, there remained a problem of killing about 15,000 women and children; for "it was contrary to the viewpoint [Auffassung] of the German soldier and civil servant to take women as hostages," ... The Jewish women and children consequently had to be "evacuated."

Page 691: At the end of October, Minister Benzler, Staatsrat Turner, and Standartenfuhrer Fuchs, joined by Foreign's Office's expert, Rademacher, were considering various methods of quietly removing the women and children. The bureaucrats planned a ghetto in the city of Belgrade, but Staatsrat Turner, who did not like ghettos, urged a quick removal of the Jews to a transit camp on a Danubian island at Mitrovica, not far from the Serbian capital. When the proposed Danubian island turned out to be under water, the choice fell upon Semlin (Zemun), a town (oposite Belgrade) originally under the jurisdiction of the Befhelshaber [occupying force] in Serbia but now transferred to Croatia. The Croatian government graciously gave its permission for the construction of a camp in Semlin. (The quote is originally from correspondence Rademacher to Luther, December 8, 1941, NG-3354).

On November 3, 1941, Turner instructed the Feld- and Kreiskommandanturen to start counting the Jewish women and children in all Serbian towns. Preparations were completed in December. Troop units began to move the families of the dead hostages to Semlin...

As the Jews arrived, they were accomodated in the camp. From time to time a batch of women and children were loaded on a special vehicle that drove off into the woods. The vehicle was a gas van.

Slowly but methodically the gas van did its work. In March 1942 the Jewish population of the Semlin camp fluctuated between 5,000 and 6,000, in April the number dropped to 2,974, and in June Dr. Shafer reported that apart from Jews in mixed marriages there was no longer any Jewish problem in Serbia.

When Generaloberst Lohr took over as Oberbefehlshaber Sudost in August 1942, Staatsrat Turner jotted down a few notes for a persnal report to his new chief. In this report Turner itemized all the achievements of the previous administration. With a considerate satisfaction he wrote down a unique accomplishment: "Serbia only country in which Jewish question and Gypsy question solved." Further comments to follow...

[Nachum]

"The Destruction of the European Jews":

It (the book) seems to place the blame for the murders primarily on Nazis (Germans). The main exception is the Croat "help".

[Nachum]

Many Jews went into hidding or escaped, I belive.

I believe that most died. According to one book, 6% of Serbia's Jews survived. The number may vary, depending on the source of information though.

[Witch-king of Angmar]

As you can see, Hilberg nowhere mentions any participation of local Serbian forces or Serbian civilians in the murder of Jews.

How come such a great percentage of murdered Jews in Serbia then?(and bear in mind that this is the key piece of "evidence" to the so-called mass collaboration in Serbia the revisionists like to give). If you read carefully my post you will see that prof.Hilberg mentions the order that some historians claim came directly from Hitler as soon as the insurgency in Serbia: to shoot 100 Serbs for every German soldier killed. The fact that they started from Jews is a part of a phenomenon that Ian Kershaw in his two-volume biography of Hitler called "working towards the fuhrer"(I'll explain it further if you like). Mass shootings of Serbian civilians were conducted in the towns of Kragujevac and Kraljevo in October 1941. None of this you are likely to find in any revisionist book about WWII in the Balkans and those who wrote them use one of David Irving's favurite methods: when documents and facts contradict the original thesis, supress them and ignore them! The Serb people simply could do no more because they themselves were threatened with genocide!(and this is not counting what was happening in the so-called Independent State of Croatia) For the same reason is such a high percentage of Polish Jews murdered(90%): the Polish people themselves were designated for extermination by Hitler and the nazis.

So, ironically, while in the rest of Europe (save Poland) the Jews were murdered because there was little or no opposition from the local population, in Serbia they were murdered for the exact opposite reason.

This is not to say no Serb ever expressed ant-Jewish feelings. There was indeed an antisemitic organisation in Serbia called Zbor. But they never had any stronghold in the people. Their best result on any pre-war elections was a little over 1%(that's ONE PERCENT) of the vote. Naturally, as soon as the Germans marched in they crawled out of the woodwork and began publicising their views agressively, another "proof" of Serbian collaboration...

And what Revenge of the Sith says is true: there was a puppet government in Serbia. But it had only light armed police under it's control as an armed force. Everything else was being done by the German occupying force, which was brutal.

[joan]

This report has pictures from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum of Serbian Jews being held in Kosovo. It appears they are in good condition.

This is only part of a long essay by a Serbian researcher, but besides the photographs, of full named people, it goes into details about them:

Jewish refugee from Serbia Mosa Mandil with his son Gavra in the Pristina prison, May, 1942. Source: USHMM

Jewish refugees from Belgrade, Serbia, Irena Mandil, Mimi, Jasa, Majer Altarac, in front of the Pristina, Kosovo, prison, May 10, 1942. Source: USHMM

5. The Pristina Internment Camp for Jewish Refugees from Serbia

In 1942, the Italian occupation forces in Pristina established an internment camp or prison for Jewish refugees from Serbia proper. Jewish refugee families from Belgrade and other parts of Serbia were held in the Pristina internment camp for ten months.

The Mandil family was interned in the Pristina camp in 1942. The Mandil family consisted of Mosa, his wife Gabriela Konfino, their son Gavra, and their daughter Irena. The Mandil family lived in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia and Yugoslavia at that time. Gavra had been born in Belgrade on September 6, 1936. Two years later, his sister Irena was born, at which time the family resettled in Novi Sad in Vojvodina in northern Serbia, where Mosa opened a photo studio. His father-in-law, Gavra Konfino, had earlier been the official Belgrade photographer of King Alexander Karadjordjevic of Yugoslavia.

Following the German, Italian, Albanian, Hungarian, and Bulgarian invasion of Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941, the Mandil family fled south to the “Italian-controlled province of Kosovo”, which then was part of Albania, a Greater Albania created by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) incorrectly and misleadingly referred to Kosovo as an “Italian-controlled province” during World War II. In fact, Kosovo was incorporated into Albania proper, thus creating a Greater Albania. The USHMM seeks to cover up or obfuscate the fact that Kosovo-Metohija was annexed to Albania.

The Mandil family was imprisoned for ten months with other Jewish families from Serbia in the city of Pristina, then part of Albania. Mosa was photographed with his wife Gabriela and son Gavra in the Pristina prison. Mosa made use of his photography experience and photographed the Italian prison guards and staff at the Pristina prison. In return, Mosa expected more lenient treatment. Several of the Jewish families subsequently complained about the overcrowded conditions in the prison. The Italian prison officials submitted the complaints of the Jewish prisoners to the German command. The German authorities responded, however, by executing half of the Jewish prisoners in Pristina.

Mosa Mandil then interceded with Italian officials to save the remaining Jewish prisoners by requesting their transfer from Kosovo to Albania proper. The Italians then moved the Jewish prisoners from Pristina to Kavaja in Albania proper by trucks.

Following the Italian capitulation and the German incursion into Albania, the Mandils moved to Tirana, hoping to find safety in numbers in the capital city. Mosa found work in the photography studio of Neshed Ismail, an Albanian who had worked for Gavra's grandfather in Belgrade. A sixteen-year-old Albanian apprentice, Refik Veseli, was also employed in this studio.

The Mandil family, along with the Be Yosif family, hid in the mountain village of Kruja from the German occupation forces from November, 1943, until October, 1944, when the German forces withdrew from Albania.

After the war, the Mandil family returned to Serbia, residing in the Serbian city of Novi Sad, where Mosa re-opened his photo studio. In 1946, Refik Veseli joined the Mandil family in Serbia by finishing his professional training in Novi Sad with Mosa.

In 1948, after the founding of Israel and the emergence of the communist regime of Josip Broz Tito in Yugoslavia, the Mandils emigrated to Israel.

The Altarac family was another Jewish family from Serbia interned at the Pristina prison. The Altarac family consisted of Majer and his wife Mimi Finci and their son Jasa and Lela. Majer had been a prominent architect in Serbia/Yugoslavia. Jasa had been born in Serbia in Belgrade on January 1, 1934. The Altarac family was wealthy and highly assimilated in Serbian society, but the family retained many Jewish traditions, including the yearly celebration of Passover with Majer's family in Sarajevo.

The Altarac family home in Sarajevo was destroyed during a German bombing raid during the Passover in April, 1941. Jasa’s sister Lela and his grandmother were both killed.

After the bombardment by the Luftwaffe, Sarajevo was occupied by German troops and Croatian and Bosnian Muslim forces, who destroyed the Sarajevo synagogue and began the mass murder of Bosnian and Croatian Serbs and Jews and Roma.

The Altarac family escaped from the newly-formed Croat/Bosnian Muslim state, the Ustasha Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska (NDH), the Independent State of Croatia, established by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, which incorporated Bosnia-Hercegovina. The Altarac family fled to the city of Sabac in Serbia, where they were sheltered by the Serbian family of Miloje Markovic, one of Majer's foremen.

In July, 1941, the Altarac family moved back to Belgrade. Upon their return, the family had to register with the police, and Majer was taken for forced labor. Majer sought to obtain travel documents from Ermino Dorio, a business partner, that would allow the Altarac family to move to the Italian-occupied zone of Yugoslavia, the former Serbian province of Kosovo-Metohija, then part of Albania. The Altarac family fled without these documents when they could not be obtained in time.

The Altarac family first went to Skopje, Macedonia, then part of a Greater Bulgaria, where they were given lodging by a Jewish family named Amarilio. Majer was recognized in the streets of Skopje and feared that he would be reported to the police because of his illegal presence there. The Altarac family could no longer stay in Skopje because of the risk of exposure and arrest.

Majer fled with his family to Pristina in “Italian-occupied Kosovo”, then part of Greater Albania. Initially, the Altarac family lived with a Kosovo Serbian family in Pristina, who sheltered the Altarac family. Subsequently they settled with a Jewish family. As Serbian-speaking Jews from Belgrade, the Kosovar Albanian Muslim population would be hostile to the Altarac family. This explains why they were sheltered by a Kosovo Serb family in Pristina. By contrast, non-Kosovo Albanians in Albania proper were more sympathetic. The Kosovar Albanian nationalist leaders sought to eradicate not only Kosovo Serbs, but Serbian culture and the Orthodox religion and language. As speakers of Serbian and part of Serbian society, the Altarac family could only expect hostility from Kosovo Albanian Muslims, who perceived Kosovo Jews as part of the Serbian society and culture. The goal of the Greater Albania nationalist movement, the 1943 Second League of Prizren, the Balli Kombetar (BK), the Albanian Kosovo Committee, was to create an ethnically pure Albania Kosova/Kosove. Ethnic homogeneity was a key objective of the Greater Albania nationalist groups in Kosova/Kosove.

The German occupation forces put increased pressure on the Italian occupation officials in Pristina to turn over the growing numbers of Jewish refugees from Serbia. In order to appease the German command, the Italian forces concentrated all the non-resident Jewish families in one location. The Jewish families were first placed in an abandoned school, and later, transferred to Pristina’s main prison. The refugee families were allowed to stay together in family units. They were also separated as a group from the regular prisoners. They were allowed to go out in the prison courtyard during the day.

The Altarac family became acquainted with the Mandil family, another refugee family from Serbia. Mosa Mandil, who was a professional photographer from Novi Sad, was able to obtain lenient treatment from the Italian prison commander by taking photographs of Italian officials and authorities. Mosa obtained permission to go to the market each day which enabled the Jewish refugee families to receive enough food to maintain their health.

But by the late spring of 1942, the German command demanded that the Italian occupation forces in Pristina turn over the Jewish refugees from Serbia in their custody. The Italian authorities turned over 51 Jewish prisoners in Pristina to German authorities. These Jewish prisoners were subsequently killed. Jasa Altarac’s aunt Frida and cousin Dita, who were part of this group, were killed.

On July 8, Italians occupation authorities in Pristina interned the remainder of the Jewish prisoners in several different locations in Albania proper. The Altarac and Mandil families were among a group of 18 prisoners from five families that was sent by truck to Kavaja. In Kavaja, the Jewish families were required to report to the police station every day. The five families--- the Altarac, Mandil, Azriel, Borger, and Ruchvarger families---rented several apartments on the top floor of a building that they referred to as the "Red House."

In September, 1943, the Altarac family moved to Tirana. This was the period when Italy surrendered and German troops were then forced to occupy Albania proper, Kosovo-Metohija, and western Macedonia, which then made up Greater Albania. They hid in a small apartment in Tirana. Jewish refugees from Serbia Sida Levi and her son Mikica, were cousins from Belgrade who joined the Altarac family. Mimi Altarac sold garments in order to earn money for the family.

The Altarac family hid in a country house in Kamza in February, 1944. Mimi Altarac and their cousins fled to Tirana in August, however, when they heard that German authorities were in the region. German officials arrived and detained Majer and Jasa after their departure. They hid the fact that they were Jews from the German officials. Majer and Jasa then joined Mimi in Tirana when they were released.

The Altarac family returned to Belgrade after the withdrawal of German forces from Tirana in the fall of 1944. They stayed in Serbia until 1948, when they immigrated to then Palestine. Jasa Altarac married Enica Franses, a Jewish survivor from Skopje, Macedonia, in 1960.

[Witch-king of Angmar]

Yes, and that is exactly my point. The population or even the forces of the puppet governement did not participate.

[joan]

Reading through post #128, which details 2 specific Jewish families which survived - including their children - shows that they went to the Italian occupied areas when the Germans invaded. They were kept in prison, then went to Albania when the Germans were pressuring the Italians to kill them. At the end of the wars the families went back to Serbia, but then emigrated to Israel.

Therefore, Israel was likely the destination of many pre-WWII Serbian Jews. If both these highlighted families went to Israel, they were likely following a trend.

[Nachum]

shows that they went to the Italian occupied areas when the Germans invaded.

This explains the situation a bit better. Correct this if it is wrong...

To summerize: Like in the rest of Europe, the genocide of Jews in Serbia was primarily of Nazi Origin. (this part I already knew). The other groups that helped the Nazis in the Balkans, were primarily the Croats who were Catholic with aid from certain Muslims in Bosnia, but not all Bosnians. If there were any Serbians who sympathized with the Nazis, they were a tiny amount as the majority were sympathetic and loyal to the allies.

Would you say that is accurate?

Therefore, Israel was likely the destination of many pre-WWII Serbian Jews. If both these highlighted families went to Israel, they were likely following a trend.

It also could be that after the Nazis, there was little hope in the life in the Balkans for them to return to and the Jews felt that they had a better chance of a successful life in Israel.

[joan]

"It also could be that after the Nazis, there was little hope in the life in the Balkans for them to return to and the Jews felt that they had a better chance of a successful life in Israel."

Wasn't Israel officially recognized by the U.S. in 1948?

So, besides Serbia being poor after the war, many Jews wanted to live in Israel as a new officially recognized country. It held more promise.

But what I was pointing to, is that if you or others wanted to delve into serious research of Serbia's pre-war Jews, that Israel looks a good place to start as some Serbian Jews were documented as going there. I'd like to know myself, as things seem generally murky - that's why you need specific people/stories to get good details, and many of them. Two families is not enough to go on, you'd have to find more before you get a fair picture. Maybe there are many in Israel who have/had a grandfather or grandmother from Serbia or the rest of Yugoslavia.

Wouldn't Israel have the records somewhere on where people came from as they arrived in the late 1940's?

You could also query people living there (Israeli newsgroups?) on how to find this information.

[Nachum]

Wasn't Israel officially recognized by the U.S. in 1948?

Yes, but European Jews were emigrating to the Holy Land from the late 1800's on. Things started to heat up in the early 1900's and the masses began running in the 30's culmanating in a flood escaping war torn Europe after the war. It will be a task to find Serbian Jews and history.

I have some friends at the Simon Weisanthal Center, I think I will ask them.

Oh, and by the way, while I was doing a search, I came accross a website that gave me pause.-

Serbian Defense League
documenting Zionist genocides on Serbs

http://sdlusa.com/sdl/

It is a site like this that makes me question things a bit...

[Witch-king of Angmar]

Why is that? It is a crackpot site of a private US citizen with no link to the government of Serbia or any Serb organisation. Nobody ever said that no Serb ever bore anti-Jewish feelings(providing the webmaster is Serbian).

[joan]

I just found this, which tells about 1,200 Croatian Jews who went to concentration camps in Italy but all aparently survived: "There was no cruelty. No abuse."

Family's seder, 44 years on, links the past and the present: Three generations, friends and a first-timer gather.

...Spitzer grew up in Zagreb, Croatia. During World War II, Spitzer, then 20, and her husband and other Jewish people were ordered by the Italians to go to concentration camps in Italy. The Italians treated them well compared with how others were treated by the Germans.

"There were 1,200 of us," Spitzer said. "They divided us into men and women. But there was easy access to go over to the men's side. There was no cruelty. No abuse."

Spitzer was later freed and made her way to the United States soon after the war ended.