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.