These are my mother’s friends. They are posing in a garden in Senta. The photo was taken around 1930. From left to right are: Milita Pleskic, Julija Glucksthal, Jovan Deutsch, Rosetta Deutsch and Jovan Glucksthal.
Milita Pleskic was the son of a Serbian Orthodox priest in Senta. Julija and Jovan Glucksthal were brother and sister. The Glucksthals were relatives of the Deutsch family. Julija and Jovan and the rest of their family was killed in Auschwitz.
The Deutsch family lived next door to my mother’s family in Senta. There were three children there: Rosetta, Jovan and Viktor. Their mother was called Silvija Deutsch. In 1932 Rosetta married a wealthy Hungarian Jew called Gorog. After their wedding they went to live in London where they remained until their deaths. Rosetta and her husband had a son named Eddie.
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.
