As of 2019, Yad Vashem recognizes 139 Serbians as Righteous Among the Nations. The numbers of Righteous are not necessarily an indication of the actual number of rescuers in each country, but reflect the cases that were made available to Yad Vashem. Jaša Almuli, former president of the Jewish Association in Belgrade, wrote that the number of saved Jews was not higher because the occupying forces introduced the cruellest regime in Europe, besides the Soviet Union, which included the retaliation laws and prescribed executions. Raphael Lemkin noted that Serbs were forbidden to help Jews by orders which provided the death penalty for sheltering or hiding Jews or accepting and buying objects of value from them.