War Tears Heart out of Bosnia’s Jewish community

Although Jewish fatalities in the conflict were few, the community suffered in other ways, and numbers have dropped sharply since 1995.

 

“The Jews of Sarajevo often say they suffered two holocausts in their lives,” says Aleksandra Cholewa, a researcher with the US Memorial Holocaust Museum in Washington, who is currently working on a project in Bosnia, documenting crimes committed against Jews in the Second World War.

“Just like all other Sarajevo residents, they consider they were targets of this war, too,” Cholewa told BIRN`s Justice Report, talking of the more recent war in Bosnia, from 1992-5.

Although the Association of Jewish Municipalities of Yugoslavia says only eight members of the community were killed in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the more recent war, the number of Jews living in Bosnia today has still fallen sharply. Only about one thousand remain, half the population in the pre-war period.  
 
The small number of fatalities does not tell the whole story about the impact of the war in the 1990s on the community either, because it does not indicate how many Jewish monuments were demolished, for example.
 
The Jewish Municipality in Sarajevo says during the three-year siege of the city about 1,000 members of the community left in convoys organized by the Jewish Municipality in tandem with the US Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.  
 
Caught between two sides:
 
According to the Association of Jewish Municipalities of Yugoslavia, of the eight Jews killed in Bosnia, six were killed in Sarajevo and two in Banja Luka.
 
Jews found themselves caught between two sides in the war. The Jewish Municipality of Sarajevo records that the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina arrested some Jews, while others were arrested by the Republika Srpska Army.
 
The community suffered material damage as well. According to the Commission for Preservation of National Monuments in Bosnia and Herzegovina, five of the eight most significant Jewish monuments were damaged between 1992 and 1995.
 
The Jewish Cemetery in Sarajevo, one of the oldest of its kind in Europe, dating back to the 16^th century, was unlucky enough to lie on the frontline, taking “direct hits from artillery projectiles and bullets”.
 
The chief glory of the cemetery was the gravestones, erected in a style found nowhere else expect Spain – the land from which many Bosnian Jews's ancestors came, after being expelled by the ultra-Catholic monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella. 
 
The Commission for Preservation of National Monuments in Bosnia estimates that “about 95 per cent of the stones” were damaged in the war. The Cemetery was also mined, and was not cleared until 1998.
 
Before the beginning of the Second World War, Bosnia and Herzegovina was home to about 14,000 Jews, about 12,000 of whom lived in Sarajevo, making up about one-eighth of the city’s population at the time.

More than 10,000 were killed in the Second World War by the Nazi German occupation forces and their local allies, the Croatian Fascist Ustashe. About half the surviving 4,000 then moved to Israel over the next few years.
 
Although the 1991 census recorded only 426 Jews living in Bosnia by then, the Jewish Municipality put the figure at 2,500, more than half of whom lived in Sarajevo.   
 
Today, the community in Sarajevo numbers about 800 members, with much smaller groups living in Tuzla, Mostar and Zenica. In Republika Srpska, the Jewish Community consists of about 200 members, of whom about 100 live in Doboj and the same number in Banja Luka.
 
Klara Pelja’s family from Sarajevo is one of those that sought shelter in Israel in the 1990s. She told Justice Report that her two younger children left for Israel “just before the war started” in 1992, while she stayed in city with her husband until 1994.
 
With the help of the Jewish Municipality of Sarajevo, they left in a convoy in 1994 as part of a programme aimed at reconnecting mothers and children.  
 
Aleksandra Cholewa, the researcher who has been recording the oral history of Jews in the former Yugoslavia since November 2005, has recorded about 200 interviews with, and concerning, Jews so far.
 
“On the basis of my conversations with Jews from Sarajevo, I concluded that during the siege of the city, they felt grateful to Sarajevo citizens for having helped them in the course of the Second World War.
 
“Almost every Jew knows that many Sarajevo residents helped Jewish people hide in the Second World War. Jews view Sarajevo as a city that has never betrayed them,” Cholewa says.
 
Klara Pelja says it was good that the Jewish Municipality in Sarajevo remained neutral between the conflicting parties in the 1990s, as this helps explain why “there were very few Jewish victims”. 
 
A ‘miraculous’ escape:
 
Yechiel Bar-Chaim, former director of the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Yugoslavia, says the organization started sending the community money even before the war, “as a way of supporting the Jewish Community in Bosnia”.
 
Bar-Chaim also says it is a miracle how “a network of escape routes” was created shortly after the conflict began, though the convoys.
 
Aron Albahari, born in Sarajevo, was actively involved in the local support team in Belgrade. He “personally organized” his own escape from the city on the eve of the conflict.
 
According to Albahari, the first Jews escaped from the city by plane from Sarajevo to Belgrade in April and May 1992. The airlifts transported 420 members of the Jewish Municipality of Sarajevo and 311 other citizens from the city.
 
The Jewish Municipality of Sarajevo, the Association of Jewish Municipalities of Yugoslavia and the Joint Distribution Committee organized the flights with the cooperation of the Yugoslav National Army.
 
Once the airport closed, they had to think of other escape routes. According to Albahari, “After the airport in Sarajevo closed as a result of military activities, the Jewish Municipality organized eight convoys of buses for people who wanted to leave the city. They all went towards Split, where they were received and accommodation organized for them in Makarska and Pirovac.”

The buses took out another 581 Jews and 792 non-Jews. A further 159 members of the Jewish community left other towns in Bosnia, such as Teslic, Kakanj and Mostar, in various ways.
 
Albahari said that with the support of the Association of Jewish Municipalities of Yugoslavia, the Jewish Municipality of Belgrade, and with financial support from the Jewish Distribution Committee, the refugees’ departure for Israel, Canada, Spain, Austria and England was then organized. 

Denis Karalic, whose story was published in a book titled Survival in Sarajevo, was 12 when the war began. His family approached the Jewish Municipality, which helped him leave for Israel in 1994. 
 
“Although there was a war going on, I think the Jewish Municipality helped as much as it could. This was not their war, but, considering they lived in the war zone, they unfortunately had to suffer just like everybody else,” Karalic told Justice Report.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
Although there is little mention in public of the deeds of the Jewish Municipality of Sarajevo in providing shelter and help to many citizens in the siege – not only Jews – Klara Pelja says their efforts definitely “increased the reputation of the Jews” in the city. “In terms of day-to-day life, there are no obstacles for Jews living in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Pelja said.

Aleksandra Cholewa agrees, saying Sarajevo and Bosnia and Herzegovina remain “fascinating” in terms of their attitude towards Judaism. “There is no anti-Semitism here. Jews feel really good living here, both in the Federation and Republika Srpska,” Cholewa said.

Denis Dzidic is BIRN – Justice Report journalist. Justice Report and Balkan Insight are BIRN`s online publications.