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2.3 The Camp at the former Fairgrounds – Sajmište
The Jewish Camp at Sajmište (Judenlager Semlin)
When the Germans transformed the Fairgrounds into a Jewish camp “Judenlager Semlin” it was a camp for the Jewish women and children. Although being just outside Belgrade, it was situated in the territory annexed by the Independent State of Croatia. But the camp was under German control, run by Gestapo, under the command of SS officers and with German guards, being a part of the military occupation administration of Serbia. Among 6,400 Jewish inmates, most of them, about 5,500, were from Belgrade. The rest of the Jewish inmates were from Banat region and other cities in the territory of Serbia occupied by the Germans. In just a few weeks, from April to May 1942, the Jewish women and children were systematically killed in the gas van (Gaswagen, known as “Dušegupka”). It was a van of mark “Saurer”, specially redesigned and readjusted by the mechanical engineers in Berlin to be used as a mobile gas chamber. This gas van had been prepared to be used in Belgrade and delivered by two SS officers from Berlin. Under false premises that they would be transferred to some other camp where living conditions were better and where allegedly they would meet their husbands and fathers who had been arrested before (in reality all the men had already been killed by that time), groups of 80-100 Jewish inmates, mostly women and children, were lured to get onto the van. Then they would ride in the van across the river Sava towards Belgrade over a temporary pontoon bridge constructed along the King Aleksandar’s Bridge demolished during the bombing of Belgrade. After crossing the pontoon bridge, two drivers, German SS officers, would reconnect the pipes so that exhaust gases, namely carbon monoxide, could enter into an airtight chamber of the van where “the passengers” were locked in. As the SS officers were driving the van through central Belgrade to Jajinci just outside the city, behind them women and children were suffocating with poisonous exhaust gases. By the time they reached Jajinci all “passengers” would have already been dead and their lifeless bodies would be dumped into freshly dug graves waiting ready for them. In this utterly perfidious and brutal way, the Nazis have killed 6,320 Jews, mostly women and children, out of 6,400 Jewish inmates of Judenlager Semlin.
Since the Jewish men were mostly executed in mass shootings during last months, by killing the remaining Jewish women and children in the camp at Sajmište, as the Nazis so cynically put it in their report, “the Jewish question in Serbia was solved”. Thus the death camp at Sajmište became a symbol of the Holocaust and the suffering of the Jews in the occupied Serbia.
At the same time there were about 600 Roma inmates in the camp at Sajmište, out of which at least 60 died during the wintertime, mostly of hunger, cold and disease, while the rest were released later.
One of the few saved photos from within the camp: the Belgrade Jews were being brought in the camp, December 1941
The death camp at Sajmište became a symbol of the Holocaust and the suffering of the Jews in the occupied Serbia.
Carbon monoxide poisoning:
- nausea, headache, dizziness,
- disorientation in time and space,
- muscle weakness, disturbed vision,
- muscle cramps, seizures,
- coma, cardiorespiratory failure,
- loss of brain function,
- death
The Detention camp at Sajmište
After the extermination of the remaining Jews in the territory of Serbia under German occupation, the camp at Sajmište was transformed into a detention camp, where most of the inmates were Serbs. The camp was still being run by the Germans. The detention camp was serving the strategic purposes of annihilation of the resistance movement and providing a forced labour for the Hitler’s war machine. Among the inmates of the Detention Camp there were a large number of captured Yugoslav partisans, and partly members of the royalist resistance movement, too; but the largest portion of the inmates consisted of the Serbian population able to work, transferred from the territories where military operations were conducted – predominantly from the Independent State of Croatia. Most of them were brought there to be deported to the force labour and concentration camps in Germany, Norway or in other countries occupied by the Germans. From time to time the camp was used for the temporary detention of the Jews who were being transported to the death camps from the regions occupied by the Germans after Italy had capitulated and from other occupied countries. Groups of captured Greeks, Albanians and others were also inmates of the camp for shorter periods of time.
The Detention camp at Sajmište was infamous for its harsh conditions and cruelty. Although it was not primarily aimed for killing inmates, it was very deadly. One third of the people who entered the camp perished there. The inmates were treated harshly and brutally in extremely bad conditions, dying of hunger, exhaustion and disease being exposed to the constant abuse by the camp guards. Many were beaten to death, while others were shot or hanged.
After the camp was bombed by the allied Anglo-American Air Forces in April 1944, there were many casualties among inmates and the camp was severely damaged. In May 1944 the Nazis handed over the rule of the camp to the Ustasha Police of the Independent State of Croatia, though it was still used mainly for German needs. Since the number of inmates was significantly reduced, and as it was obvious that the war was not going favourably to Germany and its allies as the Yugoslav partisans and the Red Army were getting closer and closer, by the end of July 1944 the camp was abandoned, the rest of inmates being transferred to other smaller camps.
On the 20th of October 1944 Belgrade was liberated by the Yugoslav partizans, aided by the Red Army.
Deportation of Serbian civilians from Kozara region (then Independent State of Croatia) to the Detention camp at Sajmište in the summer 1942.
The Detention camp at Sajmište was infamous for its harsh conditions and cruelty. Although it was not primarily aimed for killing inmates, it was very deadly. About one third of the people who entered the camp perished there.
The Victims of the Camp at Sajmište
From the first day of its existence on the 8th of December 1941, to the day it was abandoned by the end of July, in the camp established at Belgrade Fairgrounds total of 38,972 inmates were detained.
17,016 of them or 43.66 % lost their lives.
inmates
killed
Cover-Up of Crimes
Units of the “special command 1005” (Sonderkommando 1005) had arrived in Belgrade already in November 1943. Their main task was to destroy all traces of mass killings committed by the Germans performing hastily organized action. For four consecutive months at the killing sites around Belgrade, Niš, Petrovgrad (today Zrenjanin) and other places, the Germans were using prisoners to exhume mass graves and burn the corpses to make the identification of the victims and efforts to ascertain the exact number of the killed people as hard as possible. Among these corpses were also bodies of the Jewish victims shot dead, and those suffocated in the gas van.
Timeline: concentration camp at Sajmiste 1941-1944
2.4 Jewish Victims in Europe, Yugoslavia and Serbia
Еurope
There were about 9,500,000 Jews living in Europe before the World War II. German Nazis and their collaborators premeditatedly and systematically destroyed about 6,000,000 of them.
Yugoslavia
Altogether there were 82,000 Jews living in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia before the World War II, out of which 34,777 were inhabited in Serbia. Jews represented a small community making about 0.6% of the total population of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Out of 82,000 Yugoslav Jews, 67,000 or 81.7% of them lost their lives during the war. If a number of the 4,000 Jewish refugees is added to that figure, it can be concluded that out of 86,000 Jews who were present in Yugoslavia during the wartime, 71,000 or 82% of them lost their lives in the Holocaust.
Serbia
Taking into consideration the whole territory of Serbia, including the territory under the German occupation and parts of Serbia annexed by Hungary, the Independent State of Croatia, Bulgaria and Italy, out of 34,777 Jews (including 1,200 Jewish refugees from the Central Europe), total of 28,224 or 81.16% of the Jewish population were killed during the war.
The territory under control of the German Military Administration
Altogether there were 16,600 Jews living in Serbia in the territory under control of the German Military Administration, including the Banat region governed by Volksdeutsche, as well as about 1,200 Jewish refugees from the Central Europe, mostly from Austria, Czechia and Poland, who happened to be in Yugoslavia when the war broke out. So out of 17,800 Jews who were present in Serbia under the German occupation about 14,800 or 83.1% of them lost their lives. And 6,320 of those Jews were killed in the Jewish Camp at Sajmište. Consequently, out of 6,400 Jews detained in the Jewish Camp at former fairgrounds, a total of 98.75% of them were killed.
Parts of Serbia Annexed by Hungary, Bulgaria, Italy and the Independent State of Croatia
Although other occupiers were also committing crimes against the Jews, looting their property and killing them, it was primarily the Germans who instigated, organized and committed the Holocaust in Serbia, including the territories under control of Hungary, Bulgaria and Italy.
- By the end of April 1944 the Hungarians arrested the Jews in the Bačka region and handed them over to the Germans who deported them to the death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.
- In March 1943 the Bulgarians handed over the Jews from Macedonia and town of Pirot to the Germans who deported them to the death camp Treblinka.
- After capitulation of Italy the Germans deported the Jews from Kosovo and Metohija to the camp Bergen-Belsen.
- The only exception being the Independent State of Croatia: the Jews from the Srem region were killed in the concentration camp Jasenovac for the most part.
Monument to the Victims of the Raid in Novi Sad, a massacre committed by Hungarian troops against more than 1200 civilians Serbs, Jews and Roma, who were rounded up and then killed during 21-23 January 1942.
Jews in Yugoslavia
killed
Although other occupiers were also committing crimes against the Jews, looting their property and killing them, it was primarily the Germans who instigated, organized and committed the Holocaust in Serbia, including the territories under control of Hungary, Bulgaria and Italy.
Jews in Serbia
killed
2.5 Jewish Resistance to the Occupation and Help to the Jews
Ways of Rescue
The Jews who managed to get out of the cities were hiding mostly in Serbian villages assuming the identity of Serbian refugees from other parts of Yugoslavia, those from the Independent State of Croatia for the most part. Other Jews, who managed to flee from the German occupation zone and reach the territories under the Italian or Hungarian occupation, were saved at least for a period of time.
Many helped Jews to hide, to find refuge, to escape, and to save their lives in various ways. Sometimes it required providing false identification papers, sometimes just offering some food or a shelter for a night would be enough, and sometimes people risked their own and the lives of their families hiding the Jews in their houses, barns, stables and other hiding places. Up to 2016, for helping Jews 129 honorary titles “Righteous among the Nations” have been awarded by the state of Israel to the Serbian citizens, who saved the lives of the Jews risking their own.
Jews in the Resistance Movement
A great number of the Jews joined and took active part in the Yugoslav Partisan movement. Altogether 4,556 Jews took part in Fight for National Liberation. For exceptional courage and merits in the fight against the occupying forces 10 Jews were proclaimed national heroes and 14 reached the rank of a general of the Yugoslav Army.
National hero Vojo Todorović Lerer (1914–1990), was a high ranked commander in the Yugoslav Partisan movement, known for his bravery and skills. (picture from 1943, Vojo stands to the right)
4,556 Jews took part in Fight for National Liberation, out of which 10 were proclaimed national heroes and 14 reached the rank of a general of the Yugoslav Army
3. Remembrance
Memorial Days
There are several official Memorial Days which are commemorated in the Republic of Serbia:
- January 27 –
International Holocaust Remembrance Day - April 22 –
National Remembrance Day for the victims of the Holocaust, Genocide and other victims of Fascism during the Second World War
(Memorial Day for the victims of Jasenovac concentration camp and other victims killed in the Independent State of Croatia); - October 21 –
National Remembrance Day of the Serbian victims of the Second World War
(Memorial Day for the victims of Kragujevac massacre and other mass executions during the October 1941); - November 9 –
International Day Against Fascism and Anti-Semitism - December 16 –
National Remembrance Day of the Roma Genocide in World War II
Future Memorial Center at Sajmište
No memorial centre or museum have ever been built on the former campgrounds. For a long time the area where the camp was located was in a very poor condition as a result of disuse and neglect.
In spite of the fact that that it has an important place in the history of the Holocaust, in the post war era, Sajmiste was rarely recognised as a site of Holocaust remembrance. In socialist Yugoslavia, the suffering of Jews tended to be interpreted as a manifestation of the broader ‘reign of terror’ instituted by the Nazis against the civilian population.
Recently, the Belgrade City Council announced the plans of building a permanent Memorial Center at the site. The Museum of Genocide Victims in Belgrade and the newly established Memorial Center Committee are now making plans for the Memorial Center and Museum.
By putting Concentration camp at Sajmište in public focus, participating in the the project “Escalating into Holocaust” with the Historical Archives of Belgrade and other partners, and by creating the educational materials “Ester”, we aim to support this initiative and contribute to this important task.
Sajmište, 2016
4. Teaching and learning about the Holocaust
Some of the Holocaust teaching materials available in Serbia are:
- Reading and Writing With Anne Frank (Читамо и пишемо са Аном Франк) – exhibition and workshop concept developed by the Anne Frank House, translated, adopted for use in Serbia, and managed by Terraforming;
- “Portraits and memories of the Jewish Community of Serbia before the Holocaust” (Портрети и сећања Јеврејске заједнице Србије) is an initiative of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Serbia with the aim to contibute to preservation of memory of the Jewish Community of Serbia before the Holocaust, consisting of an exhibition, an archive of photographs and testimonies of survivors and other -non-Jewish- witnesses of the life of the vibrant community that existed before the Holocaust. “Portraits and memories…” is adjusted to be used as educational material about the Holocaust, too. Workshop are being organised and held by Haver Srbija.
- Učionica istorije (The History Classroom) is an online collection of lessons and articles by a history teacher and author Aleksandar Todosijević.
- Center for Holocaust research and Education is an independent NGO that offer several programs related to education and commemoration of the Holocaust victims, such as study visits to killing sites, and various online resources such as “Places of suffering and antifascist struggle in Belgrade 1941-44” and “The Suffering of the Roma in Serbia during the Holocaust”.
- Historical Archive of Belgrade produced a searchable online Database of prisoners of the Sajmište camp.
More links are coming…