From: pshane@andromeda.rutgers.edu (Ana M. Shane)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish,soc.culture.bosna-herzgvna,soc.culture.croatia
Subject: Re: Yale sources for Serbian Holocaust studies
Keywords: serbia--Holocaust--antisemitism--WWII
Date: 11 Jan 93 03:41:32 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.jewish
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.


wickerhauser-victor@math.yale.edu (Victor Wickerhauser) writes:

>Relatively few sources are available concerning the Holocaust in
>Serbia during WWII --- in particular, none published in Belgrade that

There are numerous sources on the Holocoust of the Yews in Yugoslavia
published in Belgrade. One that I mention below, is a particularly detailed
one.

>I am aware of --- but there are a few sources by people who escaped
>from Yugoslavia.  Those which I found during a brief search of the
>Stirling Library online public card catalog at Yale University are
>listed below.  They include a recent book "Fateful months : essays on
>the emergence of the final solution" by Christopher R. Browning
>(Holmes & Meier, New York, 1985), and 4 videotaped holocaust histories
>(from the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale
>University Library) by individuals who managed to escape death in WWII
>Serbia.  They mention two Serbian concentration camps, Backa Topola
>and Leskovac.  The card catalog entries include summaries of the
>videotapes, so I am posting them in their entirety below.

Backa Topola was a Hungarian concentration camp, and there was no 
concentration camp in Leskovac.

>Yale's online catalog shows the rather interesting activity of the
>Serbian Ministry of Information (in Belgrade) during 1991--92, when it
>published nearly a dozen books on the Holocaust in the Nazi quisling
>"Independent State of Croatia" (1941-45) without a single book on the
>nearly identical Holocaust in Nazi quisling Serbia.  Anyone who doubts
>that "those who forget history are doomed to repeat it" need only read
>in the newspapers what today's Serbs are doing to the people of
>Bosnia-Hercegovina.

[the references of the Yale library deleted]


>Regards,
>Victor
>                 

>-- 
>Prof. M. Victor Wickerhauser                      <victor@kirk.wustl.edu>
>Department of Mathematics, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130 USA
>Telephone:  USA(314)935-6771, USA(314)727-0749;     FAX: USA(314)727-4963
>Sto se ljuckim trudom uzdignulo, Ljuckim znojem jopet se ponavlja. --Medo Pucic


In this posting as well as others in the past several months attempts 
were made in the newsgroups "soc.culture.yugoslavia", 
"soc.culture.bosna-herzgvna" and "soc.culture.croatia" to use 
misrepresentations of the history
of the Jewish Holocaust in Yugoslavia as a political device for one
or another of the parties to the current debacle.  In the hands of
amateurs, nationalist fanatics and political activists, history can
be a deadly contraption as we all see in the ongoing events in the
former Yugoslavia. Bringing the Jewish catastrophe in Yugoslavia
during the WWII into the context of today's events is totally
irrelevant. It can only be explained as another way of spreading
hatred between various nations of the former Yugoslavia. But
inventing and passing outright lies about the holocaust of the Jews
of Yugoslavia is not only a deadly tool for futhering hatred among
Serbs, Croats and Muslims today, it also becomes a malicious
attempt to revise the history of the Holocaust denigrating its
horror. Whatever the local involvement, 80% of the Jews of
Yugoslavia died or were killed during that period and half of the
survivors did not see fit to remain there after it was over. There
is not one national group in the area which did not have
individuals and organized elements which played horrible roles in
the holocaust and other monstrous events during WWII.  There is
also not one national group in the area which did not have some
individuals and organized elements which played heroic roles in
both the holocaust and surrounding events at the time.  Leave the
Jewish and other dead of that period to their tortured rest. Don't
try and make them parties to the current horrors.
 
For those who are interested in the events which comprised the
holocaust in Yugoslavia, The Federation of the Jewish Communities of
Yugoslavia published in 1980 in Serbocroatian a detailed account of
the "final solution of the Jewish problem" in the territories of
Yugoslavia with an English summary. (Dr Jasha Romano: "The Jews of
Yugoslavia 1941-1945: Victims of Genocide and Freedom Fighters", Jewish 
Historical Museum - Belgrade with the support of the Republic of Serbia
Association for Science). It details both the horrors and heroism of the 
time, more of the first than the second, in every part of Yugoslavia. It 
mentions all responsible individuals and organizations invovled in 
"solving Jewish problem" in all the regions of Yugoslavia.
 
One conclusion can be drawn from this book: any extreme nationalism
coupled with fascistic ideology is the most horrible state of human
afairs. It is physically deadly for the members of the "non-aryan",
"non-our", "impure", "to-be-exterminated" nation. It is
psychologically and morally degrading for the "aryan", "our",
"pure", "exterminating" nation.  That is the lesson which applies to
the current situation, not the guilt or non-guilt of national
collectives for past horrors.
 
For anyone interested I will on request present summarized material
in English or specific material in Croatoserbian.     



Regards,

Ana M. Shane
pshane@andromeda.rutgers.edu