The Serbs and Jews
In the year of 1988 - a book of a famous Serbian writer (Kostic) entitled as „Serbs and Jews“ was published. In it’s introduction the author describes its motivation, for writing such a book, as follows: “We must clarify to our Jews, Jews of the world and to our selves that we are interested in them, that we understand them and that we were always their friends and want to continue to be their friends.” The Serbs are one of the few nations who historically have lived in peace with the Jews, since the Jewish arrival to the Serbian lands.
The Jews are mentioned in Serbian history of the middle ages for example during the kingdoms of the Cars (Tsars) Dušan and Uroš, but they were present in a lager amount, in Serbia, in the XVI century afther being exiled from Spain. Jewish migrations to Serbia’s cities took also place during the Ottomanic occupation, while the Serbian Orthodox population lived in mainly in villages. That’s why there was not a particularly contact between the two nations - until the moment when Serbia liberated its self from the Turkish authorities.
In liberated Serbia the relations (between the two nations) were fair and the aspects like anti Semitism or discrimination are not remembered at all. Tolerance and correctness in the Serbian Jewish relations and the absence of hate separates this situation from the other situations which are remembered as tragic European experiences. Jews from Serbia proudly represented their selves as “Serbs with the religion of Moses”, their writers and artist were significant Serbs.
The, later in history, well known Jewish Yugoslav communist, Mose Pijade, declared his self, during a people’s registration, as a Serb by nationality, what was not to much popular in that time because the pro Yugoslavian royal regime (whose establishment partly included compromises with the third parties and the West) had introduced the ideology of the Yugoslavian integral unity.
This included that the citizens of royal Yugoslavia (which was established after WW1 in cooperation with the allies and the Vatican) should be considered first as Yugoslavs by nationality.
A negative shadow to this historical experience was brought by a Croat Josif Frank
(a Slavonian Jew who was converted to Roman Catholicism) who started to follow the chauvinist and anti- Serbian politic of a famous Croatian politician Ante Starcevic, by organizing prosecution against the Serbian population and the formation of the “Franovacka” legions – which became later a part of Pavelic’s fascists Croatian army.
Josif Frank is marked in Serbian history as an exception because his followers were mostly Catholic Croats and not Jews.
Josif Frank openly had condemned his Jewish ethnic and religious background and they who hate their own kind will not be much better towards others, Orthodox Serbs for example.
The Serbs did not consider Frank’s actions as a result of Jewish work, as much as third parties wanted to see, these actions were only blamed on the Croatian extremists.
Besides his own son, Josif Frank did not gain any support or followens from the Croatian Jews.
The Austrian Jew Хајнрих Фридјунг (Hajnrih Fridjung) (with his anti- Serbian contribution in the year of 1909 - in Vienna) did not succeed with his attempt to create an anti Semitic atmosphere amoung the Serbs, as much as the third parties wanted to see.
The attempt of Хајнрих Фридјунг (Hajnrih Fridjung) in the year of 1909 had not succeeded, as indented, to cause prejudices among Serbs against the Jews.
In contradiction to the Serbian history the Croatian history is full of anti Semitic examples. This is exposed and documented by a English female writer Elizabeth Diskeman - Елизабет Дискеман – even if she constantly had preferred the Croats above the Serbs. She declared that anti Semitism is rising up in Croatia, while the Jews in Belgrade are respected.
The same was written by a German publicist Johan Georg Rajsmiler (Јохан Георг Рајсмилер): "Religious intolerance has no place in Serbia."
The Turks as the occupiers and the oppressors were hated by the Serb.
But this did not include the hatered to the Turkish religion.
Nothing had brought to the Serbs such a bitterness, in the 30s, as the German prosecution against the Jews.
The same is also confirmed by a English publicist George Mike (Џорџ Мајк):
“the Serbs do not have the habit to prosecute the minorities.
“In contradiction to the Croatians, Anti Semitism is something unfamiliar to the Orthodox Serbs.”
During WW2 the Germans and the Croatians had placed the Serbs and the Jews outside the law. Acimovic’c commissarial rule and the government of Milan Nedic, which were under German occupation, had both refused to participate in the Nazi extermination process against the Jews or, like proposed by the German authorities, to establish anti Semitic laws. Not only refused occupied Serbia to establish laws against Jews, but it had not at all participated in the extermination of the Jews. All of that was conducted by the Germans and trough their won organs. Many Serbs actually started to help the endangered Jews by hiding and feeding them and accepting them as their relatives in their families.
Milan Nedic made it possible that many Jews could escape to the Italian occupied areas where anti Jewish laws were not in power.
Due this, the following Jews were saved:
Tradesman Gabaj, Engineer Samoilo Kakovljevix, Rebecca Amodaj, dr. Ana Aladzix, dr. Maria Isaac, Jacob Almuli, Oskar Davico ect.
The Serbian Cetnik movement had saved Jews when it was able to do it and the Serbian Orthodox Church provided new identities to the Jews in order to save them.
General Milan Nedic personally had saved the president of the Jewish community of Belgrade Fridrih Popesa and his secretarian Moris Abinuna, who was direct cooperating with the communists. The members of Nedic’s government had saved Abraham Baruha, Engineer Stanislav Josifovic ect. Because of Nedic’s works many Jews were saved from the Banjica camp. From the other side, there is not even one occurrence familiar that the Serbian Cetnik Movement of Draza Mihajlovic did not accept any Jew who came to them.
The personal doctor of Draza Mihajlovic was a Jew Tibor Goldvajn (Тибор Голдвајн).
A Serbian publicist from Diaspora Vukasin Petrovic (Вукашин Перовић)
says: It is well known how many Jews were saved by the Cetnik movement and how many by the Partisans. There was not even one Serbian Cetnik command from Belgrade un till the Adriatic coast where the Jews did not had found their place, they were even present in the Cetnik units of Herzegovina, where I belonged.
In contradiction to the Serbs, who were humane and fair to the Jews during the great historical tragedies, the Croatians were very opposite. They participated, together with the Germans, in the competitions of “who will commit more atrocities to the Jews”, and they were very proud that they had managed to overmatch their German colleagues.
Like as follows was testified by a Jewish survivor Joseph Konforti (Јозеф Конфорти) from the extermination camp Jasenovac: “nobody in the occupied Yugoslavia did not take
the orders, that cold bloody, to exterminate the Jews like the loyal servants of Hitler the Ustase, lead by Ante Pavelic, had done.
Among the Croatian people and the Croatian Catholic Church there was not any honestly resist against the evil politic which was conducted against the Jews and Serbs. Till the last moments the Croatian Catholic Church and the Croatian nation had supported Ante Pavelic, the leader of WW2 Croatia.
The Serbs can be proud to the fact that not even one Serbs had killed a Jew or participated in the holocaust during WW2. This is confirmed by many historicians and historical documents. Kostic refers to the book of Dzerald Rajtlinger (Џералда Рајтлингера) which is entitled as „the final
attempt to extreme the Jews in Europe (1939 – 1945)” and it contents:
“the perpetrators and those who gave orders to murder JEws – among them you have no Serbian nationalities. For the executions of the Jews in Serbia, the responsibility goes to the foreigners. The perpetrators were Germans, there were no Serbs among them.
The author said honestly: “even if I indented on purpose to mark some Serbs on the lists of the perpetrators, it would be very hard to find some names.”
In contradiction to this, in Croatia it was totally different. There the crimes against the Jews were conducted by the domestic Croatians. Some of the most important figures were related to the Jews. To prove this Kostic quotes Rajtlinger : “Ante Pavelic was married to a daughter of a Jew (Lorencevic). Marshal Kvatarnik, who participated in the organization of the Ustashi terror, had married the daughter of the, in the beginning mentioned, Croatian nationalistic leader (Jew converted into Catholic religion) Josif Frank.
Kostic, next to that what the Serbs and Jews have in common and what had brought the Serbs and Jews historically closer to each other, writes also about negative aspects and those who had thrown darkness to the Serb- Jewish relations. First of all Tito’s anti Israel politic has nothing to do with the Serbian nation in general, and than the irresponsible of two famous Jewish intellectuals who have deeply harmed the Serbian pride and feelings, is also written.
That are Elia Finci and Oscar Davic (Елију Финцију & Оскару Давичу).
Finci in certain debates regarding science and culture avoided to mention the Serbian name, ignoring Serbian contribution to science and artistry and offending it.
He also disrespectfully talked about the Serbian literatury from before the war (collapse of Yugoslavia). He had the same attitude towards the intelectuals who had written about the Serbian icons, monasteries, Saints and the dynasty of Njemanic.
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A document translated in English from a Seselj's book.
Book: the Ideology of Serbian nationalism.
Author: dr. Vojislav Seselj
More to come....
Topic: Jews and Serbs (Read 2804 times)