[19a] At the height of World War II, in 1943, Ruth Mitchell wrote a book
entitled The Serbs Chose War to document and celebrate the valiant
fight of the Serbs against German Nazism, and against Nazi allies within
Yugoslavia. In her book she reproduces in full a letter
"...written by a Jewish physician, a professor in the Department of
Medicine in the University of Belgrade, to a friend in London on his
escape from Yugoslavia in 1942. As the writer is a Jew, for the sake of
relatives who remain in Yugoslavia his name cannot be used."
This letter tells a remarkable tale of Serbian moral bravery. Here it is:
[Text Of The Letter Begins Here]
“In Yugoslavia there were 85,000 Jews, including Jewish émigrés from
Germany, Austria, Poland and Czechoslovakia. Thanks to the Serbs, the
Yugoslav Jews had succeeded in saving and rescuing many of their
compatriots from Germany and German-occupied countries. Service rendered
and assistance given to Jews by Yugoslav consular officials in Austria
and Czechoslovakia has specially to be recognized. Of the total number
of Jews in Yugoslavia about 7,500 were refugees.
“After the [Nazi invasion in 1941]...the Jews came under the rule of
various regimes, including Pavelich's 'Independent Croatian State'.
“The 'solution' of the Jewish question in the Independent Croatia
devolved upon the Croatian Ustashis. [This was the clerical-fascist
regime set up in Croatia with Nazi approval.] In Serbia, however, the
Jewish problem was not dealt with by the Serbs themselves. This the
Germans reserved for themselves. There are special reasons for this.
When they occupied Serbia, the Germans did not find any anti-Semitic
feeling in the country. They could not persuade either the local
population or the local authorities to take any anti-Semitic measures.
“
The fact that Nedich [the Serbian quisling government, installed
after the Nazi invasion] twice demanded from the German commanding
officer in Serbia and the Banat that he and his government should be
given the right to settle the Jewish problem, against whom no drastic
measures should and could be taken in Serbia, shows the feeling of the
Serbian people toward the Jews. The following reasons were given by
Nedich to the Germans for this demand. If the Germans wanted the Serbs
to calm down, it would be of first importance to stop the terrible
persecution of the Serbian Jews. The Serbian people could not and would
not accept such treatment 'of their compatriots of the Jewish
religion.' The Serbs consider Jews as their brothers, only of a different religion.
The answer which Nedich received from the Germans regarding this
demand was 'that the Serbs have not attained a culture to the degree
necessary to enable them to deal with the Jews. We ourselves shall
settle the Jewish question in Serbia.'
“With regard to anti-Semitism, Yugoslavia can be divided into two
parts, i.e., districts where this feeling was latent, and Serbia,
where, it can be said without any exaggeration, anti-Semitic feeling
has never had any root.
“During Yugoslavia's twenty-three years of existence, Serbia has always
professed the free democratic tradition existing in the former Kingdom
of Serbia. There in the nineteenth century, and later in the
twentieth, the Jews always had full civic rights and complete equality
with their Serbian compatriots. This equality was not only granted in
various constitutions of the Kingdom of Serbia and later of the Kingdom
of Yugoslavia, but it was also a true expression of the relationship
between the Orthodox Serbs and the Jews in their everyday contact. This
friendly and amicable relationship also existed in the economic,
financial, and political life in Serbia. The small group of Jews living
in Serbia gave their contribution towards the cultural and political
life in Serbia's struggle for the formation of a state of South Slavs.
The Jews had in Serbia members of Parliament. In Serbia's struggle for
liberation, the Jews gave their contribution. Several were awarded the
Karadgeorge Star for bravery in the battlefield - equivalent to the
British V.C.
“About a year before Yugoslavia was attacked by Germany, by pressure
from the Reich and in their attempt to suit their policy to the
dictators, the Tsvetkovich-Machek Government passed the first
anti-Semitic measure in Yugoslavia. The Government was not unanimous on
this point. Dr. Koroshets, leader of the Slovenes, upheld the measure
as Minister of Education. Serbian cabinet ministers, however, including
the Minister of War, refused to apply the act. The application of it
was confined to the Ministry of Education, under the Slovene, Dr.
Koroshets, and the Ministry of Trade and Industry, under the
Croat[ian], Dr. Andres.
“In all the schools and universities, numerous restrictions were
applied by circular, but in Serbia, Serb teachers and professors
succeeded in avoiding or sabotaging the regulations.
“In this regard Serbia completely differed from Croatia under Dr.
Machek and the district governor or Ban, Shubashich. In Croatia
anti-Semitism was inherited from Austria-Hungary. Anti-Semitic centers
had always existed. Dr. Shuba****ch's Croatia had even prepared
elaborate laws and regulations just before the war broke out in
Yugoslavia in 1941. A large part of the industries in Jewish hands in
Croatia was to be confiscated and nationalized. Anti-Semitism was
particularly stressed in Croatia by the right wing of Dr. Machek's
Croatian Peasant Party.
“This report could be divided into two parts - the first beginning with
the entry of German troops into Belgrade in April 1941 to the
beginning of August 1941; the second from the middle of August 1941
until the closing down of the office of the 'Jewish section' late in
1942. The section was closed because there were no longer any Jews in
occupied Serbia. During the first stage the Jews were tortured,
persecuted, maltreated, taken for forced labor. Well-known Jews and
Serbs were taken to German concentration camps. Women of the
intelligentsia class were forced to clean latrines in the German
barracks, to clean floors and sweep streets under the supervision of
the S.S. troops. They were made to clean the windows of high houses
from the outside, and several of them lost their lives through falling
down. Jewish girls were violated and taken to 'Militar-Medi'. Already
during the first stage the Jews were deprived of all their property and
most of them were evicted from their homes.
“In the second period male Jews were sent to concentration camps. But
quite a number of men and young Jews succeeded in escaping to the
villages, where they lived with Serbian peasant families. A number
later joined the guerrillas. A considerable number of youths from the
Jewish Zionist organization, which co-operated with the Serbian
organizations for the preparation of resistance, actively helped the
guerrilla fighters. Many collected hospital material for the guerrillas
or posted anti-German posters in Belgrade streets. The name of
Almozmo, a schoolboy of ten, the son of a well-known Belgrade
dispensing chemist in Peter Street, should be mentioned. He threw bombs
at two armored German cars and a tank in Grobljanska Street in
Belgrade and blew them up. His elder brother, a medical student, is
still fighting in Bosnia, in spite of the order that the mayor and
members of the rural councils would be shot if such cases were
discovered in their villages.
“Some forty of my relatives were shot in Belgrade by the Germans. I am,
however, very proud to say that today two small relatives of mine, one
of five and one of seven years of age, whose parents were shot by the
Gestapo, are being hidden by two Serbian mothers.
“No German measures in Belgrade were able to upset the friendly
relations between the Serbs and Jews. During the forced-labor period
Serbs talked to their Jewish friends in the streets even in front of
the German soldiers and police. During the period well over 300,000
Serbs were massacred by the Croat Ustashi in Bosnia, Herzegovina, and
Lika and some 60,000 shot by the Germans in Serbia, during the period
when Serbian students and peasants were hung in the main square in
Belgrade, the Serbs of the capital had sufficient courage to protest
publicly their indignation at the treatment of the Jews.
“When Jewish women were transported in lorries to the concentration
camps, Serb shopkeepers in the streets through which these processions
passed closed their shops and their houses, thus expressing not only
their protest, but also emphasizing the fact that the entire population
of Serbia, yesterday and today, does not and cannot participate in the
extermination of their Jewish neighbors.
“The example of the Serbian people with regard to the Jews is unique in
Europe, particularly in the southern part of the continent. In spite
of intensive German propaganda in writing and through the wireless, the
Serbs remained unaffected. When we consider what happened to the Jews
in neighboring countries, in the "Independent State of Croatia,"
Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria, the Serbian example shines out.
“Today there are no more Jews left in Serbia, except some children
hidden by the Serbs and those fighting along with the Serbs in the
forests. I saved my own life thanks to my Serbian friends. I was saved
from certain death. Serbian peasants and my other friends also saved
from death my only son, who was on several occasions sought by the
Gestapo in Belgrade.
“It is my desire as a Jew and as a Serb that in free democratic
countries where Jews are still enjoying full freedom and equality they
should show gratitude to the Serbian people, pointing out their noble
acts, their humane feelings, and their high civic consciousness and
culture....
“I cannot conclude this report without mentioning how the Serbian
Orthodox Church, the Patriarch Gavrilo, and his clergy tried to save
Serbian Jews and Gypsies. Up to the present day the Germans have
massacred I70,000 Gypsies, men, women, and children, in Serbia and the
Banat. Serbian Orthodox priests and the Serbian peasantry risked their
lives not only to save ordinary Jews and their children but also to
save those Gypsies and their children. Today the chief rabbi of
Yugoslav Jews lives in America. He was saved from the Gestapo, being
smuggled out from Serbia from monastery to monastery by the Serbian
clergy. He was handed over by one Serbian church to another, by one
Serbian priest to another until he was passed on to Bulgarian
territory. There, with the assistance of the Orthodox Bulgarian clergy,
some of whom were his personal friends, he arrived at the Turkish
frontier.”
