Friends of Aleksandar Necak’s mother

Friends of my mother posing for picture in the river near Senta in 1930. From left to right are: Viktor Deutsch, Vladislav Zentaji, Klara Miller, and an unknown Gentile. 

The Deutsch family lived next door to my mother’s family in Senta. There were three children there: Rosetta, Jovan and Viktor. During the war both Viktor and Jovan were captured and taken to work camps in German-occupied Russia. The Russian army liberated the camps and the captured were released. When Jovan was on his way back to Yugoslavia, as a member of the Yugoslav unit of the Russian army, he met his brother in a Russian train station. Shortly after that meeting Viktor died of typhus in Russia. Jovan moved to Israel in 1948. He had two sons there. His elder son was killed in the 1967 war. Jovan moved to Australia with his wife and younger son. Jovan is 92 years old and living in Melbourne.  He still writes to my mother on a regular basis. 

At the beginning of the war Vladislav  Zentaji was captured and sent to a work camp in German-occupied Russia  (along with other young boys from Senta). When the Russian army liberated the camp he came back to Yugoslavia as a member of a Yugoslav unit of the Russian army. Upon his return to Yugoslavia, he escaped from the barracks and went to search for his family, all of whom had been killed. He returned to his unit and was shot and killed for running away without permission. 

Klara Miller is 88 years old and lives in Belgrade. She worked as a pharmacists and she is now retired. During WWII she was registered as a Croat in Zagreb, Croatia and this is how she survived the war.

Photos from this interviewee