HISTORY LESSON I-III
KT
ignorance"
In that spirit and that spirit alone I wish to contribute to the Serbs
and their education of their recent history.
(World War II), omitted from their Cyrillic school books. (AD 1900….>)
Their British friends as well could have some history lessons
There will be 3 lessons altogether. Notes and references will be at the
and of third lesson. Photostats of original documents and parts of
Serbian newspapers will be posted later.
On personal request of some Byzantine people, who were not able to
remember the LESSON 1 while read-ing LESSON 2 I will post all three
chapters at once so they can read or download and learn their proper
history. I am truly sorry that English language can be written in
Cyrillic letters that could enhance your reading. But, there you have
it.
I. THE YIDS
In the past, anti-Semitism was present in the collective consciousness
of all the nations of Europe, and so of course in that of the Serbian
people. One example of this can be found in the collection of folk tales
assem-bled by the Serbian linguist Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic, »Serbian
folk tales« [Srpske narodne pripovjetke], (1.1)1853. The story called
»The Yids«[Civuti] from this collection is remarkably like the story of
»Hansel and Gretel«, only with the role of the wicked witch being taken
by Jews.
»Then there came along some Yids, and when they saw the fire, came up to
the children and asked them what they were doing there and whether there
was anyone with them, and when the children had told them what and how,
the Yids told them to go along with them, saying that they would have a
fine time at their house. The children agreed and went with the Yids,
and the Yids took them to their house. They didn't have anyone else at
home, only their mother, and when they came home, they shut the boy up
to get fat and made the girl a servant to their mother. One day, when
the boy had been well fed and was fat, the Yids went out on some errand
and told their mother to roast him, and then when they came home in the
evening from their work, they would eat him...«
This story about Jews, who chased after the gentile children with knives
and forks to eat them, which pres-ents the Jews as cannibals, was very
much alive even after 1848, the year that was a turning point in Europe,
after which those who had not had civil rights previously were able to
achieve them.
However, in spite of all the European movements, it was not until 1878
and the Berlin Congress that the Jews in Serbia were, for the first time
in history, able to achieve equality before the law with the other
peo-ples. At Berlin, the countries taking part signed a memorandum and
unanimously took the decision that Serbia would be internationally
recognized only if she proclaimed the equality of all faiths, which
meant that she had to admit full rights to the Jews.
The government and Prince Milan Obrenovic IV agreed to fulfill these
conditions, but the Government was still desirous of outwitting the
world public in some way.(1.2) At Berlin, the Congress had made the
treaty public, including articles 34 and 35:
Art. 34. The high contracting parties acknowledge the independence of
the Princedom of Serbia, binding [it] to the conditions that are set out
in the following article.
Art. 35. In Serbia, differences in faith and religion shall be no
hindrance, and no one may for such reasons be excluded from or
obstructed in the enjoyment of his civil or political rights, or fail to
be accepted into the public service, or be deprived of the proper
respect to his position, or be forbidden to carry out the various trades
and professions in all places whatsoever. Freedom and the public
exercise of all church rituals of all faiths and religions shall be
guaranteed to all citizens of Serbia and to foreigners, and nothing
shall be done to interfere with the hierarchical ordering of the various
faiths nor with their relations with their spiritual superiors.«(
Serbia and other Balkan countries (for example, Bulgaria and Monte
Negro) did not abide by the undertak-ings they had given in the Treaty
of Berlin, including those that were concerned with the rights of
minori-ties.
Shortly after the Berlin Congress, in August 1878, its decisions with
respect to the Jews were referred to in Serbia by Nikola Jovanovic in
his pamphlet »On the Hebrew question in Serbia«. [O jevrejskom pitanju u
Srbiji]:
»... Europe has forced the Hebrews on us for us to grant and allow them
in our country all the rights that we have acquired and enjoy. But that
the Jews or any non-Serb elements should have the same right as those
native to Serbia, we challenge and deny.«(1.5)
In 1878, before the Berlin Congress, the distinguished Serbian scientist
Vasa Pelagic had published the book »The religious teaching of the
Talmud or the mirror of Yiddish honesty« [Vjerozakonsko ucenje Talmuda
ili ogledalo civutskog postenja] in which he complained that:
»Today, when European diplomats are forcing Serbia and Romania to
acknowledge the Yids and their re-ligion, as being equal with other
citizens before the law, this book is timely and 'fitting'«.(1.6) In the
sequel, he stressed the importance of this work:
»Today, when the Yids are more and more worming their way not only into
the towns, but also into the vil-lages, it is absolutely vital for every
family in every province where there are Yids to read this book and
commit it well to memory; for it is the genuine mirror of the Yids, from
which it can be seen that their own divine law, The Talmud, commands
them to swindle, short-change, grab from, delude, injure, hate, ruin,
pillage and kill all peoples that are not Yids «(1.6)
It was in such an atmosphere that »a few Serbian patriots« printed the
booklet called »Don't let us give Ser-bia to the Yidss [Nedajmo Srbiju
Civutima] in which one of the concluding sentences was unambiguou-sly
clear: »What then can we expect from the Hebrews in our father-land?«.
Nothing good, for, as could be seen, »this is a people that is
completely useless to our country and highly dangerous for the
advancement of our people. And so it is our duty to prevent by every
permissible means the spreading and settling of He-brews in Serbia...
And for this reason all patriots are called upon to enroll in the
Serbian anti-Hebrew Soci-ety, which should be formed as soon as
possible, and first of all in Belgrade, where the doors of our
fat-herland are open wide to the Hebrews .. And thus shall we save our
fatherland from the Yids«(1.7)
At the beginning of the century, in the lead-up to the Balkan wars, a
booklet was published in Belgrade called »From whom should we buy?« by a
certain S A., which recommended:
»Let us buy only from Serbs and Christian folk, and let only Serbs, and
Serbian women, and Chri-stians, have a chance to make some money If we
behave differently, if we do not buy everything we need only from Serbs
and Christian traders and artisans then we are bound to be ruined.«
Within the framework of this economic reasoning he noted
parenthetically:
»This distrust and antipathy towards the Hebrews on the part of
Christians has quickly turned into hatred, because the intolerance of
those days could not accommodate itself to the idea that the Hebrews,
people without a land of their own, eternal vagabonds, a cunning and
devious people, could possibly have the same rights as people who
believe in Christ, who have always lived in one country and who love
their homeland.«
Immediately before the Balkan wars the political journal »Balkan« began
to come out in Belgrade The »Balkan« went so far in its anti-Semitic hue
and cry that individual »Serbs of the Mosaic faith.« as some Ser-bian
Jews declared themselves even began to draw attention to the
baselessness of the charges against the Jewish people in Serbia.
The historical reality of anti-Semitism is apparent not only among the
Serbs im Serbia, but also among the Serbs in Croatia in the second half
of the l9th century The »Serbian Guardianz [Srbobran],(1.10) the journal
of the Serbian Independent Party, the chief representative of the
Serbian minority in Croatia, like the »Soothsayer« [Vrac-pogadac]
published by Sima Lukin Lazic, was replete with derogatory names for
Jews and sallies at their expense (1.11)
»The Soothsayer. greeted the sentence pronounced on Dreyfus, and
attacked 'Croatian Right' [Hrvat-sko Pravo], the joumal of the Pure
Party of Rights, and the leader of the party, Josip Frank, because they
had written sympathetically about the accused« (1.12)
Milan Obradovic, a Serb journalist in Bjelovar at the beginning of the
century regularly put next to his name the qualification »anti-Semite«
or »the first public and main leader of the anti-Semitic movement in
Croa-tia« and was one of the leading anti-Semite Serbs in Croatia. He
wrote and published thirty brochures and pamphlets of a pronouncedly
anti-Semitic character
His bi-weekly »Traveller round the whole world« [Putnik po cijelom
svijetu], of which he was founder-owner and editor, put forward such
anti-Semitic ideas in the number of April 10, 1907, that the city
autho-rities in Zagreb banned the magazine in 1908.
Obradovic began his overtly anti-Jewish activities in 1907, when he
published his »Excerpt from the Tal-mud«, in the introduction to which
he states:
» .. if our brothers the Croats would study what the Talmud is, they
wouldn't provoke or cause distur-bances against their brothers the Serbs
and vice versa. . . There are no friends for you among the Jews (save
false ones), and why, for they do not at all consider you a man but only
a beast.«(1.13)
For the strains that existed among the Serb and Croat political parties
in Croatia at the beginning of the 20th century, Obradovic blamed the
Jews, who, according to him, had the most to gam. He explains his
view-point in a pamphlet of a somewhat lengthy title: »How the Jews have
for forty years deceived the
wretched and ignorant Croats, that they are Croats of the Mosaic faith
and thus have enslaved them, fru-strated them politically, sucked them
dry materially, cramming all the Croatian money into their own tills and
pockets.«:
»When they were finished with the Croats, then they took aim at the
Serbs. Who prepared that out-burst against the Serbs in Zagreb 7 years
ago - the Jews! Who was behind the Serb high treason trial in Croatia -
the Jews! Against those accused of treason from Slavonia (Pakrac,
Gjulovac etc.), the witnesses were almost all Jews.« At the end of the
pamphlet Obradovic counsels the Croatian people: »How would it be if our
Croat brothers in everything respecting the Jews were to look to their
Serb brothers. If they did, then I am absolutely certain that it would
mean a crashing defeat for the Jews in Croatia.« (1.13a)
»The Free Word« [Slobodna Rijec] (the journal of the Croatian
social-democrats of the period) at-tacked him, as Obradovic himself
stresses in the foreword to his book »Why are we anti-Semites and what
do we want?« [Zasto smo mi antisemiti i sto hocemo mi?] (1909):
»[saying that] there is no room for anti-Semitism in Croatia and
recommending me to hit out against capital and capitalists in Croatia,
and not strike out at a peaceful and honest part of the population in
the coun-try.«(1.14)
The complaint about the Croats that they were insufficiently
anti-Semitic was repeated by Obradovic in his »First epistle to brother
Serbs in Bjelovar and its neighborhood«,(1.15) in which the lack of
anti-Semitism among the Croats is explained to the Serbs by the
following reasons:
»The Croats are too soft on the Yids and let the wool be pulled over
their eyes by Israel, bit it's not so easy for them to cope with the
Serbs, the Croats do not have so much power of resistance against the
foreign as the Serbs. Apart from that the Catholic priests are all in
the Yids' pockets, and these days the priests have a lot of influence.«
In 1920, he wrote a booklet dedicated to the »fighters of Croatian
social-democracy«, as the title page of »How we can solve the Jewish
question« [Kako da rijesimo zidovsko pitanje] declares. As well as his
»classical« thesis he proposed the urgent organization of a »Great
anti-Semitic congress« at which sugge-stions would be received for the
settling of the »Jewish question« that would afterwards be forwarded to
the Croatian Parliament for adoption.(1.16)
There was also anti-Semitism among the Serbs of Vojvodina. The political
journal »Banner« [Zastava] which was founded in Budapest in 1866 by the
distinguished Vojvodinian Serb writer and politician Sve-tozar Miletic,
and which afterwards came out in Novi Sad, published a great number of
anti-Semitic articles.
And in the Novi Sad »Serbian« [Srpsko kolo] Jasa Tomic attempted a
scientific defense of anti-semi-tism in his booklet »The Hebrew
Question« [Jevrejsko pitanje] (1886). »The oldest of Hebrew national
tra-ditions, their history and today's statistics show us that the
Hebrews have of all nations multiplied the most, and that they are so
multiplying today ... The multiplication of population was with the
Hebrews stronger and faster than the multiplication of products and the
means for life. And where that happens, there must also happen a
ferocious struggle for survival - rapine. This circumstance in our
opinion produced among the Hebrews debauchery ... And this corruption,
this debauchery, is the cause and even in the most ancient time gave
rise to anti-Semitism, to anti-religion.«
Nor did the booklet lose its scientific value of giving a biological and
theological ground for anti-Semitism« with the arrival of the Serbian
fascists on the Serbian political scene, for Ljotic' fascist »Troop«
[Zbor] re-printed in the 194.0.
In a similar vein, Sima Stanojevic from Sombor, the owner of a »Grocery
and general articles« store stated with pride that he possessed all the
more important anti-Semitic books.
In 1880, he had a book printed in Novi Sad called »The effect of the old
Yiddish faith and morality in hu-man society« [Kakav upliv ima civucka
vera i moral u ljudskom drustvu](1.18) which on the first page in-sists:
»A powerful and hostile foreign state is expanding over almost all of
the countries of Europe, and it is at war with all others and is
crushing the citizenry with a dreadful burden - and that is Yiddery.«
The book has a number of pearls such as: »lt is enough for there to be
in a heap of the most healthy apples only 3% of rotten ones for them to
infect all the healthy ones with decay, and in the same way this small
number of Yids is enough to be the downfall of all other peoples among
whom they are taking up room; it is this un-lovely picture that
confronts our eyes today.«
And in 1912 the »Naumovic and Stefanovic Printers« in Belgrade printed
his pamphlet »Judaism for the consideration of the whole of Serbian
journalism«(t t9) in which he expressed the opinion that »We do not know
whether Tolstoy was a member of the Freemasons, we only know what we can
see with our eyes, that in almost every Yiddish and Freemason lawyer's
office, and in the office of their institutions, we can see a picture of
Tolstoy, which requires no further commentary.... As can be seen,
Tolstoy fought shoulder to shoulder with the Yids. Are those revolutions
in Russia during the war with Japan not the work of the Yids, of those
preachers of vice and debauchery, with whom the power of the demons is
in invisible service?«
Although more than 30 years had passed since the Berlin Congress,
Stanojevic still had not forgotten the European politicians who took the
lead in it. He writes:
»After every war, or after every major change, they [the Jews - author]
are always first with their demands. So much blood spilled by the sons
of Russia for the liberation of Bulgaria and Serbia brought them the
lion's share. Who does not remember the Berlin Congress at which they
[Jews] took the leading word under Dis-raeli Beaconsfield? The Princedom
of Bulgaria, like the Kingdom of Serbia, could only be conditionally
recognized, at the cost of equality for the Jews in these countries,
which they would later subjugate.«
Anti-Semitism »ex privata diligentia« received backing in various
historical periods from the Serbian Or-thodox Church. In the SOC's
official journal of the l9th century, the Belgrade published »Christian
Cou--
rier« [Hriscanski vesnik](1.20) printed anti-Semitic articles. Only a
year after the Berlin Congress, at which Serbia had bound itself to
respect all the rights of the Jewish people, this »paper for Christian
learning and ecclesiastical literature« published a series of articles
on »Christianity in the first three centuries«, in which the Jews were
called »the enemies of Christ's church«, »unbelieving Judeans«,(1.20a)
who were full of »reli-gious hatred for Christianity« and who »thought
up the most revolting and ridiculous libels against Chris-tians.«
At the beginning of this century the »Orthodox church Herald« [Glasnik
pravoslavne crkve] nourished ha-tred for Jewry among the orthodox of the
Kingdom of Serbia.
In 1912 it published a commentary about the »lately concluded
interesting court case in Kiev at which the Jew Beylis was tried for the
ritual murder of the boy Andrei Yushchinski...« The »Heraldz could not
hide its dissatisfaction when the accused was freed for lack of
evidence:
»And while we are talking about this trial, it is interesting to halt
for a while at the question of ritual mur-ders, in which case it is
necessary to settle the question of whether they exist in reality, or
whether they are only invented stories, as the Hebrew press endeavors to
present them... When O. Pranajtis [chief pro-secutor at the trial -
author] to whom can be attributed no low motives or personal profit that
would lead him delib-erately to accuse the Hebrews of ritual murders,
nevertheless finds in the Hebrew holy books ade-quate grounds for such
killings, why then should the same grounds not be found by some exalted
fanatic... That there could in truth exist such religious enthusiasts is
borne clear witness to by the real and not merely theo-retical
circumstances that in those places where Hebrews and Christians live
side by side, the corpses of Christian children are very often found,
children whose murder remains for ever mysterious and by not-hing
explained! And it is extremely characteristic that it is always
Christian children that perish, and never Jew-ish, and this was the case
with Yushchinski.«(1.21)
One of the editors of the »Herald« was »the monk Josif Cvijovic, a
teacher of the seminary of St. Sava«. In the »Herald«, which later
changed its name to the »Herald of the Orthodox Patriarchy«,
anti-Semitic articles appeared much more frequently after Hitler came to
power in Germany.
The »Orthodox Church Herald« that came out in Belgrade in 1912, No. 16,
edited by the priest Milivoj M. Petrovic had an article printed in the
»News« section called »How the government protects us«. In this arti-cle
the public is warned of the influx of Jews settling in Belgrade, which
is held a great danger for the »state religion«.
»When from the Knez Mihajlova crossing you go down Kralj [King] Petar
Street immediately on the right hand side you will come upon the house
of the late Pero I. Jovanovic, which is now being renovated as his own
property by a certain Mosesite Alkalaj . . . The state authorities of
the sixties and seventies of the last century [before the Berlin
Congress - author] would have seen an insult to their state religion in
this act, and would have found ways to have deprived a member of the
Mosaic persuasion of this satisfaction, such as this of Mr Alkalaj, but
now everything is going as it ought not to. When the synagogue was built
on the place where it is now, then there were only suspicions, but now
those suspicions have come true ... Gather-ing around their synagogue
they have forced out the Christians from almost all the houses in the
streets of Uros, Knez Mihajlo and Kralj Petar, so that in the whole of
that area you will have a hard time to find twenty Christian families.
And this is called religious toleration.«(1.21a)
The monk Josif Cvijovic, one of the editors of the »Herald« later became
a bishop, metropolitan, and during the second world war, vice-patriarch,
and leader of the Orthodox church. During the period when he was editor,
the following could be read in the »Herald«:
»Dungeons and scaffolds were not dreadful for the orthodox compared to
the spiritual tortures to which they were frequently subjected by the
Latin »kulturtregeri«; and the Jewish hyena-like sucking of the blood of
national economic strength is but a shadow compared to the rending of
the soul of the Ortho-dox«, (1.21b)
With the co-signature of metropolitan Josif, the Serbian Orthodox Church
put its hand to the order by which the baptism of Jews in Nedic's Serbia
was forbidden, thus putting the only straw of safety out of the grasp of
many members of the Jewish people.
The well known Bishop of Kraljevo, Nikolaj Velimirovic, whom many
members of the Serbian ortho-dox church look upon as »the sainted
Nikolaj«, stressed the values of nationalsocialism and racism in his
many public appearances and written works. In Belgrade, two years after
Hitler had come to power in Ger-many, the book »The nationalism of St.
Sava« was printed, in which, among much else, Nikolaj stated:
»One has to give due respect to the present German leader, who as a
simple artisan and man of the people realized that nationalism without
faith was an anomaly, a frigid and insecure mechanism. And thus in the
20th century he came to the idea of St. Sava and as a layman undertook
for his own people that most im-portant of all works that becomes only
saint, a genius and a hero. And for us this work was done by St. Sava
... Hence Serbian nationalism is as a reality the oldest in
Europe.(1.22)
He confirmed his enthusiasm for Hitler's nazism a few years later, in
1939, in his speech on the 550th anni-versary of the Battle of Kosovo.
On this occasion he said quite openly in the monastery of Ravnica:
»We are the children of God, people of the Aryan race to whom fate gave
the honored role of being the leaders of Christianity in the world. .
.«(1.22a)
Bishop Nikolaj's spiritual pattern, the then Patriarch of the Serbian
Orthodox Church, Varnava, also thought and wrote in the spirit of these
years. In January 1937, for example, he made a statement that was
printed by the German paper »Voelkischer Beobachter«:
»The Führer of the great German nation is leading a battle for the
benefit of the whole of humanity . . . the justified battle of the
German people for equality deserves the respect of all nations«.(1.22b)
Without the slightest sense of theological incongruity, Patriarch
Varnava announced, also in January 1937, to the Muenchen's Neueste
Nachristen, that nobody less than »God had sent to the German people a
far-seeing Führer . . . We believe in the Führer and in the truth of his
word«.(1.22c)
II. JUDENFREI
As Nazism spread over Europe, the persecution and genocide of the Jews
began in many European coun-tries. So with the coming of the Nazi
authorities in Serbia in April 1941 the occasion arose for certain
cir-cles to »finally settle« the problem of the Jews in their own
milieu.
The German occupiers found collaborators across the board in Serbia:
»At the beginning of May 1941, the Germans gave the civil administration
over to the so-called Council of the Commissariat for Serbia, at the
head of which was Milan Acimovic. The tasks of the Commissariat were
administrative and political, and economic. First of all it had to work
towards the pacification of the country and the support of the system of
military occupation. In effect the Commissariat was the executor of the
orders of the occupier...«(3.0)
After the Third Reich passed an order on August 28, 1941, abolishing the
Commissariat, a civil gover-nment was formed »whose president was a
general of the former Yugoslav army Milan Nedic. .. Nedic crea-ted armed
units, the so-called Nedic army«.(3.1)
Apart from these untis, there were also the so-called Voluntary Army of
Dimitrij Ljotic and the chet-niks of Kosta Pecanac and Draza Mihailovic.
In 1976, documents relevant to the years 1941-1944 were published in
Belgrade in an archival reviews un-der the title »The collaboration of
D. Mihailovic's Chetniks with the enemy forces of occupation«.
The original documents were collected by the Serbian scholars Dr Jovan
Marjanovic and his collabo-rator Mihail Stanisic. The explanation in the
foreword runs:
»The chetniks of Draza Mihailovic were represented as fighters against
the occupier, while in fact they were the allies of the Nazi fascists in
Yugoslavia ... This collection covers documents from the war years of
1941-44. Documents from 1945 have not been included here because by that
time the Chetnik units of D.
Mihailovic had become wholly incorporated in the German front in
Yugoslavia.... The documents in this collection indicate clearly and
unequivocally that the Chetniks collaborated with the occupiers, both in
the military and political sphere, as well as in the domain of economic
activity, intelligence and propagan-da... «(2) The chetniks of Draza
Mihailovic mainly »looked after« the »solving« of the problem of the
commu-nists.
The »solving« of the »problem« of the Jews began as quickly as a week
after the German army catered Bel-grade, with the whole-hearted support
of the Serbian government.
Within the Gestapo structures in Belgrade a commission for Jewish
questions was set up, in which the city administration as it then was
had its representative. With the help of the Belgrade city
administration the occupier formed the so-called Hebrew police, which in
fact represented one section of the city of Bel-grade
administration.«(1.23)
»The chief of the Hebrew police was Otto Winzet, once employed in the
Philips concern. Of Serbs there were Jovan (Joca) Nikolic, the
commissar, then Nikola Nikolic, Ivan Bozicevic, Martinovic, Ljubin-kovic
and Dordevic also known as Ceka...«
In the »Schedule of rules of the military commander in Serbia no. 7 - 8,
May 31, 1941« are the »Orders relating to Jews and Gypsiesz,(1.25) among
which, among other things, state:
1. Jews
(. . .) Paragraph 2. Jews must report within two weeks to ... the
Serbian police registration authorities.
Paragraph 3. Jews ... must wear a yellow band on their left arm with the
word »Jew« written on it.
(...) Paragraph 4. Jews may not be public servants. Their removal from
all institutions must be imme-diately performed by the Serbian
authorities.
Paragraph 5. Jews cannot be allowed to practice the professions of
lawyer, physician, dentist, veteri-narian and chemist.
(...) Paragraph 7. Jews are forbidden to visit theaters and cinemas.
2. Gypsies
Paragraph 18. Gypsies are considered equivalent to Jews.
Even earlier, in the »Community news« [Opstinske novine] it had been
proclaimed that »Jews are for-bidden to appear henceforth without a
yellow band.«(1.26)
3. The duties of the Serbian authorities
Paragraph 21. The Serbian authorities are responsible for the carrying
out of the commands contained in this Order.
4. Penal Measures
Paragraph 22. Whoever resists ... shall be punished with imprisonment
and a monetary fine. In aggra-vated cases the punishment will be penal
sentences or death. Belgrade, May 30, 1941. (Printed commands of the
Military Commander in Serbia, No. 7 - 8, May 31)
Soon, thanks to various Commands, the Jews were completely deprived of
their rights. They were not al-lowed to be editors in newspapers,
academic auditors, they could not run a theater, or a lawyer's office, a
dentist's surgery, a chemist's, do the work of a physician, a veterinary
surgeon, be the owners of educa-tional institutions or work in them. The
musicians' federation informed the Jews that their work in music was
against the present rules. Jews could not be telephone subscribers or
even use someone else's pho-ne,(1.27)
The following »Command« was also issued:
»AII Jews resident in Belgrade must within five days give up their
radios, refrigerators and electric coo-ling devices. The relinquishment
of radios and refrigerators will take place in the building of the
elementary school in Becanska street No 8, and in this order...
Those Jews who do not behave according to this command will be punished
most severely.
President of the commune and director of the city of Belgrade Drag.
Jovanovic (Agencija Rud-nik) «,(1.28)
Sensing what it was that was ultimately awaiting them, individual Jews
fled from the larger towns. Because of the flight of the Jews in 1941,
the quisling government issued a number of orders that again called upon
the Jews to register with the authorities. One woman who survived bears
witness as follows: »On the sev-enth of December [1941- author] all Jews
got papers delivered by Nedic's gendammes ordering them to report the
following day to the Hebrew police ... It said in the paper that we
should take three days' food, and as for clothing, fresh linen, and
bedding, only as much as we could carry ourselves«.(1.29)
»AII Jews are called upon to present themselves on December 12, 1941, at
8 in the morning in the courtyard of the Special Police for Jews in
George Washington St. 21. Everyone may bring with him as much baggage
and bedding as he can carry by himself. Apartments must be left locked
up. Apartment keys to be fastened to a piece of card with the address of
the apartment and the name and brought along. Whoe-ver does not come
will be most severely punished.«(1.29a)
From all these assembly points, the Jews were led away escorted by
Serbian police and German guards to concentration camps, where they were
brutally put to death.
»Thus on December 8, 1941, he went to the assembly place at the building
of the [Serbian -