Daniel Rip (right) in front of the furniture-making and repair workshop he founded with his partner.
Date: 1937
Photo number: 55619
Daniel Rip (right) in front of the furniture-making and repair workshop he founded with his partner.
Date: 1937
Photo number: 55619
Elvira and Mira Keller, daughters of Irena Rip Keller. Killed in Auschwitz.
Date: 1938-1940
Photo number: 32027
THE HOLOCAUST
The Holocaust was a systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of Jews carried out by Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945, with the support of other fascist and nationalist regimes and various local collaborators who either assisted the Germans or directly participated in the crimes of the Holocaust.
The Holocaust is a crime without precedent in history. Nazi Germany based its ideology on racist antisemitism, and in pursuit of a vision of a new world order and “living space” for the German nation, the destruction of Jews became, for the Third Reich, not just a means but also a goal and a purpose of its very existence. Even as Germany was losing the war, the killing of Jews accelerated and intensified, paradoxically, perhaps because of the imminent defeat.
The Holocaust was unprecedented because the complete apparatus of the firm and modern German state – with all its resources, capacities, administration, and organization – was mobilized for the destruction of a single minority group. Every segment, every gear, and cog of this powerful, complex mechanism worked with one goal: to kill all Jews. Ministries from economy and agriculture, energy and transport, to culture, media, education, and even family and social services, youth and sports ministries, police, and the military – all worked diligently and methodically to destroy the entire Jewish population.
The Holocaust is a crime without precedent because it unfolded across the European continent. The Nazis were not alone; they had willing accomplices throughout Europe who eagerly participated in the endeavor, often acting on their own initiative, arresting, killing, or handing over their Jewish neighbors to the Germans.
In present-day Serbia, the Holocaust was carried out by German occupation forces, Bulgarian occupiers in Pirot, Hungarian forces and local Hungarian collaborators in Bačka, part of the German minority Volksdeutsche in Banat, the Ustaše regime of the Independent State of Croatia in Srem. Serbia, too, had its collaborators and perpetrators: from Milan Nedić’s puppet regime to Dimitrije Ljotić and Kosta Pećanac’s Chetniks, and countless opportunists who exploited the misfortune of others for personal gain.
The Holocaust is a crime without precedent because it happened in full view of millions of silent bystanders who did not want to see, pretended not to see, or were afraid to see – and some, not so rarely, even rejoiced and supported what was happening. These millions of silent witnesses essentially enabled the crime to occur.
Behind this silence lies antisemitism, the oldest hatred, deeply embedded over centuries into the fabric of European cultural identity.
The Holocaust was a turning point in world history, transcending geographical boundaries and affecting every aspect of societies it touched. Decades later, we are still searching for ways to deal with the memory of the Holocaust.
The culture of Holocaust remembrance involves not only preserving the memory of the victims but also acknowledging personal and societal responsibility to recognize and oppose violations of civil and human rights. This includes confronting contemporary antisemitism and the abuse and distortion of history for the promotion of nationalism, fear, and hatred.
Hinko and Mari Rip in their garden in Novi Sad. Hinko was killed during the Novi Sad Raid. Mari was murdered in Auschwitz
Date: 1938-1940
Photo number: 32028
HOLOCAUST IN NOVI SAD
During World War II, the population of 4,350 Jews in Novi Sad suffered immense losses in the Holocaust. 3,020, or 70% of the Jewish community of Novi Sad, were killed.
Crimes in Bačka, including those committed in Novi Sad, unfolded over several periods. 12. Immediately after their entry on 12–13 April 1941, Hungarian occupation forces carried out a wave of violence and killings targeting the civilian population in Novi Sad, Sombor, Subotica, Srbobran, and the villages of the Šajkaška region—Čurug, Žabalj, Titel, Mošorin, Gospođinci, Đurđevo, and others.
The Novi Sad Raid (Racija)
In the Novi Sad Raid (also referred to as the Raid in South Bačka, or Razzia) in January 1942, the Hungarian army and gendarmerie forces killed over 4,000 civilians, primarily Serbs and Jews. In Novi Sad alone, about 900 Jews were killed, nearly a quarter of the city’s Jewish population at the time.
Forced Labor
Throughout the Hungarian occupation, anti-Jewish measures were enforced. Jewish men aged 18 to 60 were forced into labor camps across Europe, mines, or the Eastern Front, where many were killed or perished from disease and exhaustion.
Deportation to Death Camps
After German forces occupied Hungary in March 1944, even harsher measures were imposed on Jews, including those in Bačka. The looting of Jewish property was completed, and Jews were forced to wear the yellow star on their clothing.
On April 26, 1944, Jews in Novi Sad were arrested, detained in the city’s synagogue without food, water, or toilets, and then deported to death camps. Of the 1,900 Jews deported from Novi Sad, only around 200 survived.
German and Hungarian forces began mass arrests of Jews in Novi Sad, as well as in the entire territory of Bačka, in the morning hours of April 26, 1944. . All members of the Jewish community were arrested, including children, women, the elderly, and the ill. Virtually the entire Jewish population of Novi Sad was forced to the Novi Sad Synagogue.
They were locked in the Synagogue from April 26 to 28 without water, food, and toilets. From there, they were transported to concentration camps in Subotica, Baja, and Bačka Topola, where they were distributed and deported by train to Nazi death camps, most of them to Auschwitz. The majority were killed in gas chambers immediately upon arrival in the camp. Of about 1,900 Novi Sad Jews who were deported in April 1944, only about two hundred survived.
Survivors
After liberation, only a few hundred Jews returned to Novi Sad. Many later emigrated, primarily to Israel, while others rebuilt their lives, forming the foundation of the renewed Jewish community in Novi Sad.
Rebuilding the Jewish community of Novi Sad was difficult and challenging. Among those who survived and decided to stay in Novi Sad, some found the strength to assemble a new life and start new families, forming the backbone from which the new stem of the Novi Sad Jewish community grew.
Daniel Rip in Novi Sad
Date: July 1940
Photo number: 32025
DANIEL RIP
One of the Stories of Novi Sad Jews
Daniel Rip was born in Novi Sad in 1922 to Hinko and Mari Rip. . He had a sister, Irena, and three brothers: Imre, Teodor, and Mihajlo.
Daniel’s brother Teodor left for the United States before the war.
Daniel’s sister Irena married and, as Irena Keller, gave birth to two daughters: Mira and Elvira.
Imre was an activist of the Hashomer Hatzair – a Labor Zionist, secular Jewish youth movement.
Daniel trained to become an upholsterer and carpenter and started his shop shortly before the war.
In April 1941, Germany and its allies attacked Yugoslavia. After a short war, Novi Sad was under Hungarian occupation.
During the Novi Sad Raid on January 23, 1942, Hungarian gendarmes arrested Daniel’s father, Hinko. A group of detained citizens, including Hinko, were ordered to lie down on the street, after which they were shot in the back of the head. Then, the Hungarian gendarmes threw the victims’ bodies into the Danube River.
After the occupation, Imre was engaged in the resistance movement. In mid-1942, a few months after their father was killed, Imre was arrested for political activity and sent to forced labor in Ukraine, where he was killed, probably in 1943. . He was posthumously honored by the Organization of The Partisans, Underground and Ghetto Resistance Fighters in Tel Aviv.
Together with the rest of the Novi Sad Jews, in April 1944, Daniel’s mother, Marie, sister Irena, and Irena’s two daughters, Mira and Elvira, were deported to Auschwitz, where they were killed, probably immediately after arriving in the camp.
In the summer of 1942, Daniel was sent to forced labor to build bunkers and barracks for the Hungarian military. In 1943, he was sent to the Hungarian border to build roads and then further east, where he was exploited working in a mine. There, Daniel was caught in the crossfire and wounded in the leg. After his leg healed, he was again forced to work in the Hungarian military labor battalions. The working conditions were very harsh, and the prisoners were beaten daily. Daniel was deported to the Budapest ghetto at the end of 1944. There he met his future wife, Judith Fribert, from Czechoslovakia.
Judith and Daniel survived the Holocaust. They married on February 26, 1945, less than two weeks after Soviet troops liberated Budapest. Judith and Daniel decided to return to Novi Sad and look for surviving relatives. The only survivor was Daniel’s brother Michael.
Judith and Daniel had two children in Novi Sad: Vera in 1946 and Henri in 1947. . Immediately after arriving in Novi Sad, Daniel was recruited into the Yugoslav Army. After finishing his military service in 1948, Daniel, Judith, the children, Daniel’s brother Mihajlo, and Mihajlo’s wife immigrated to Israel.
Portrait of the four Rip brothers: Daniel, Imre, Mihajlo, and Teodor in Novi Sad.
Date: 1938-1940
Photo number: 55617
Irena Rip Keller and her daughters Elvira and Mira in their garden in Novi Sad. All were killed in Auschwitz.
Date: January 19th 1940
Photo number: 32026
Yugoslav Jews aboard the ship Kefalos, sailing from Bakar, Croatia to Israel.
Date: December 1948
Photo number: 24743
Yugoslav Jews aboard the ship Kefalos, sailing from Bakar, Croatia to Israel.
Date: December 1948
Photo number: 24743
Jews are assembled in the desecrated synagogue in Novi Sad before being transported to a concentration camp.
Date: April 26th 1944, Locale: Novi Sad, Vojvodina, Serbia
Photo number: 12892, Photo Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,
courtesy of Moshe and Malka Lovy, Copyright: USHMM, Provenance: Moshe and Malka Lovy, Source Record ID: Collections: 2001.336
Jews are assembled in the desecrated synagogue in Novi Sad before being transported to a concentration camp.
Date: April 26th 1944, Locale: Novi Sad, Vojvodina, Serbia
Photo number: 12892, Photo Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,
courtesy of Moshe and Malka Lovy, Copyright: USHMM, Provenance: Moshe and Malka Lovy, Source Record ID: Collections: 2001.336
Observer of the Royal Hungarian Gendarmerie for the Szeged Supervisory District
BRIEFING
Information regarding Order 6163/1944 of the Royal Hungarian Minister of the Interior
In connection with the implementation of this order, a meeting was held on April 19 at the Ministry of the Interior, presided over by Minister Baky, where the details of the process of cleansing the territory of Jews were discussed.
…The order does not currently address the covering of costs related to the relocation. It was decided that these costs would be covered from Jewish property. The establishment of collection camps will also be funded in the same way.
Jewish apartments must be locked and the collection of valuables, etc., will be carried out by a commission that includes one or two experts. Items of value — money, typewriters, bicycles, cameras — must immediately be listed in three copies and delivered to the designated branch of the National Bank. Food that spoils easily found in the apartments must also be recorded in a separate list, also in three copies. That food is to be handed over to the supply department, which will manage its distribution. The proceeds from its sale are to be deposited until the Ministry makes a decision.
As stated in the meeting, Jewish apartments should be allocated to officers, state employees, and workers who do not have adequate and healthy housing. They may also be given the use of the household furnishings, with a proper inventory list. However, whenever possible, artistic objects, paintings, carpets — items not needed for daily use — should be itemized and sent to an appropriate location for safekeeping. This also applies to fur coats, silverware, etc. The point is that all Jewish property becomes the property of the Hungarian state and must be preserved as such.
When distributing food, workers have priority, and prices are set by the authorities.
Bicycles are to be given first to the military or law enforcement. The same applies to typewriters.
WITNESS TESTIMONIES
WITNESS TESTIMONIES
MATIĆ MILIVOJ
Novi Sad
66 years old, Serb, engineer, address: Natoševićeva 15. Statement recorded on March 3, 1945.
“In my neighborhood lives — or rather, used to live — a Jewish family named Römer. On May 1, 1944, at seven in the morning, four men came for them: one in a Gestapo uniform, one police officer, and two representatives of the city administration. Mr. Römer’s wife was ill, but they showed no consideration — they forced her to go with them, along with her husband and their two children, aged 10 to 14.
Later, I found out they had been taken to the local synagogue. To this day, they have not returned. I should also mention that, by then, their entire apartment had already been cleared out and all their furniture taken away. I have nothing more to say about this matter.”
MALENČIĆ STEVAN
Novi Sad
51 years old, former clerk, Serb, Orthodox Christian, address: Kraljevića Đorđa 10.
Statement recorded on January 15, 1945.
I don’t remember the exact date. It was in April 1944. . I don’t remember the exact date. It was in April 1944. I was in Baja, passing through from Pécs to Novi Sad, where I had to wait one day for a connection to Subotica. While there, I found out that the Jews from Novi Sad were in Baja, outside the town, about four kilometers away, in some barracks. Since I knew two women who used to live in the same house as me, I hired a carriage and went to those barracks, where I saw the Jews from Novi Sad inside a wire enclosure that had previously held Yugoslav army officers.
From about five or six steps away, through the wire, I spoke with several Jews I knew. They complained that they were sleeping on bare sand and that inside the barracks, they were packed like sardines — 1,700 of them in two barracks. The stench inside was unbearable, and they said they would rather sleep outside.
Among the people I recognized were the widow Klug and her daughter Margita, fur trader Satler from Kralja Petra II Street, grain trader Vajs Leo, Katica Berte from 6 Gajeva Street, waiter Kovač from Novi Sad, merchant Gajger from Temerinski put, sign painter Levenberg, the daughter of an installer from Petra Zrinjskog Street named Kelemen, and the shoe merchant who ran the “Astra” shoe store. I also saw the president of the Jewish religious community, Dr. Ferdinand Lustig, and many other Jews from Novi Sad whose names I no longer remember.
They all looked utterly exhausted, like walking corpses, barely able to move from weakness. Even the carriage driver told me they had been brought there during terrible weather, in heavy rain, and had been living in inhumane conditions.
IMPRESSUM
Author: Miško Stanišić
Design: Darko Vuković
Publisher: Teraforming, www.terraforming.org
Web design: Skilltech Web Design
All photos:
Source and Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington
Origin: Vera Rip Hirschhorn
Except Photo No. 24743 – Origin: Gavra Mandil
References:
- Priče smrti i života iz kutije 183, Vladimir Todorović, Teraforming
- Deportation of Bačka Jews in 1944 (Archives of Vojvodina)
- Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (USHMM)
- Teaching Materials on Antisemitism (Terraforming)
- IHRA Recommendations for Teaching the Holocaust
- The Destruction of the Hungarian Jews (Yad Vashem)
IMPRESSUM
Author: Miško Stanišić
Design: Darko Vuković
Publisher: Teraforming, www.terraforming.org
Web design: Skilltech Web Design
All photos:
Source and Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington
Origin: Vera Rip Hirschhorn
Except Photo No. 24743 – Origin: Gavra Mandil
References:
Deportation of Bačka Jews in 1944 (Archives of Vojvodina)
Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (USHMM)
Teaching Materials on Antisemitism (Terraforming)
IHRA Recommendations for Teaching the Holocaust
The Destruction of the Hungarian Jews (Yad Vashem)
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