Around 5,000 Jews lived in Estonia before the Holocaust. When the Soviets invaded in 1940, approximately 400 Jews were sent off to prison camps. In 1941, more than 3,000 fled into the Soviet Union to escape the Nazis while those who stayed behind were murdered. Today there are less than 1,000 Jews in Estonia, but the community, like the country, is highly organized.
The Jewish communities of the three Baltics have this in common: they were all subsumed into the Soviet Union after the Second World War, and over the following decades, their Jewish communities-which had been frightfully decimated by the Holocaust-were re-populated by Jews from the interior of the Soviet Union who relocated to Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius.
Except in a very few cases, Centropa has made it a point to interview only those Jews who had been born in the Baltics in the years preceding the Holocaust.
In Estonia, some of our interviews have been carried out by Alexander Dusman and Emma Gofman, although the majority have been carried out by our Kiev-based team at the Institute of Jewish Studies, headed by Marina Karelstein, coordinator, and Ella Levitskaya and Zhanna Litinskaya, interviewers.
Around 5,000 Jews lived in Estonia before the Holocaust. When the Soviets invaded in 1940, approximately 400 Jews were sent off to prison camps. In 1941, more than 3,000 fled into the Soviet Union to escape the Nazis while those who stayed behind were murdered. Today there are less than 1,000 Jews in Estonia, but the community, like the country, is highly organized.
The Jewish communities of the three Baltics have this in common: they were all subsumed into the Soviet Union after the Second World War, and over the following decades, their Jewish communities-which had been frightfully decimated by the Holocaust-were re-populated by Jews from the interior of the Soviet Union who relocated to Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius.
Except in a very few cases, Centropa has made it a point to interview only those Jews who had been born in the Baltics in the years preceding the Holocaust.
In Estonia, some of our interviews have been carried out by Alexander Dusman and Emma Gofman, although the majority have been carried out by our Kiev-based team at the Institute of Jewish Studies, headed by Marina Karelstein, coordinator, and Ella Levitskaya and Zhanna Litinskaya, interviewers.
Around 5,000 Jews lived in Estonia before the Holocaust. When the Soviets invaded in 1940, approximately 400 Jews were sent off to prison camps. In 1941, more than 3,000 fled into the Soviet Union to escape the Nazis while those who stayed behind were murdered. Today there are less than 1,000 Jews in Estonia, but the community, like the country, is highly organized.
The Jewish communities of the three Baltics have this in common: they were all subsumed into the Soviet Union after the Second World War, and over the following decades, their Jewish communities-which had been frightfully decimated by the Holocaust-were re-populated by Jews from the interior of the Soviet Union who relocated to Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius.
Except in a very few cases, Centropa has made it a point to interview only those Jews who had been born in the Baltics in the years preceding the Holocaust.
In Estonia, some of our interviews have been carried out by Alexander Dusman and Emma Gofman, although the majority have been carried out by our Kiev-based team at the Institute of Jewish Studies, headed by Marina Karelstein, coordinator, and Ella Levitskaya and Zhanna Litinskaya, interviewers.
This short text describes our work in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Macedonia
There was no country called Yugoslavia before 1918, and this “Union of South Slavs” brought together lands that had spent centuries under Austrian, Italian, Hungarian and Ottoman rule. Some 87,000 Jews lived in this new land and they ranged from Sephardic Jews in Bosnia, Serbia and along the Adriatic to Ashkenazi Jews in most of Croatia and in the Hungarian-speaking parts of Serbia (Vojvodina).
Much to the chagrin of the other republics in Yugoslavia, Serbia dominated this interwar state, and when the Germans invaded in 1941, more than a few Slovenes and Croats saw them as liberators. Jews, of course, did not.
During the Second World War, citizens of Yugoslavia fought the invading Germans, Bulgarians, Hungarians and Italians and also fought each other. Although the Allies originally backed Serbian partisans, they switched their allegiance to Tito’s Communist partisans, who were clearly winning.
At war’s end, ten percent of the country’s population had died but over seventy percent of its Jews had been murdered. Yugoslavia then became a one party state under Tito, who, after breaking with Stalin in 1948, ruled the country until his death in 1980. His country would last just over another decade without him.
Before the break-up in 1991, some 6,500 Jews were living in the country and when Yugoslavia began its decade of wars they began fleeing the country for Israel, England and North America.
Even as of this writing, in 2019, it can be said with the economy continuing to languish (except for Slovenia), a great many of ex-Yugoslavia’s Jews have continued to leave. Very few remain today, although Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Macedonia all maintain lively, spirited communities, despite their miniscule size.
As for Centropa’s interviews: we have been lucky to work with Rachel Chanin in Serbia - an American who speaks excellent Serbian and who is married to Yitzhak Asiel, Serbia's chief rabbi. Aside from Rachel's extensive social welfare and cultural activities, she conducted interviews for us in Serbia and in Macedonia. Over the years, we have also managed to pick up a handful of interviews in Croatia and Bosnia.
In Croatia, Silvia Heim and Lea Siljak conducted two excellent interviews for us in Zagreb. We would also like to call your attention to a book published in 2013 called 1941: The Year That Keeps Returning, by Slavko Goldstein. Professor Goldstein, who died in 2017, was a publisher, Jewish community activist and writer. His memoirs are considered by many to be one of the finest personal stories published on the Holocaust in the past ten years.
This short text describes our work in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Macedonia
There was no country called Yugoslavia before 1918, and this “Union of South Slavs” brought together lands that had spent centuries under Austrian, Italian, Hungarian and Ottoman rule. Some 87,000 Jews lived in this new land and they ranged from Sephardic Jews in Bosnia, Serbia and along the Adriatic to Ashkenazi Jews in most of Croatia and in the Hungarian-speaking parts of Serbia (Vojvodina).
Much to the chagrin of the other republics in Yugoslavia, Serbia dominated this interwar state, and when the Germans invaded in 1941, more than a few Slovenes and Croats saw them as liberators. Jews, of course, did not.
During the Second World War, citizens of Yugoslavia fought the invading Germans, Bulgarians, Hungarians and Italians and also fought each other. Although the Allies originally backed Serbian partisans, they switched their allegiance to Tito’s Communist partisans, who were clearly winning.
At war’s end, ten percent of the country’s population had died but over seventy percent of its Jews had been murdered. Yugoslavia then became a one party state under Tito, who, after breaking with Stalin in 1948, ruled the country until his death in 1980. His country would last just over another decade without him.
Before the break-up in 1991, some 6,500 Jews were living in the country and when Yugoslavia began its decade of wars they began fleeing the country for Israel, England and North America.
Even as of this writing, in 2019, it can be said with the economy continuing to languish (except for Slovenia), a great many of ex-Yugoslavia’s Jews have continued to leave. Very few remain today, although Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Macedonia all maintain lively, spirited communities, despite their miniscule size.
As for Centropa’s interviews: we have been lucky to work with Rachel Chanin in Serbia - an American who speaks excellent Serbian and who is married to Yitzhak Asiel, Serbia's chief rabbi. Aside from Rachel's extensive social welfare and cultural activities, she conducted interviews for us in Serbia and in Macedonia. Over the years, we have also managed to pick up a handful of interviews in Croatia and Bosnia.
In Croatia, Silvia Heim and Lea Siljak conducted two excellent interviews for us in Zagreb. We would also like to call your attention to a book published in 2013 called 1941: The Year That Keeps Returning, by Slavko Goldstein. Professor Goldstein, who died in 2017, was a publisher, Jewish community activist and writer. His memoirs are considered by many to be one of the finest personal stories published on the Holocaust in the past ten years.
This short text describes our work in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Macedonia
There was no country called Yugoslavia before 1918, and this “Union of South Slavs” brought together lands that had spent centuries under Austrian, Italian, Hungarian and Ottoman rule. Some 87,000 Jews lived in this new land and they ranged from Sephardic Jews in Bosnia, Serbia and along the Adriatic to Ashkenazi Jews in most of Croatia and in the Hungarian-speaking parts of Serbia (Vojvodina).
Much to the chagrin of the other republics in Yugoslavia, Serbia dominated this interwar state, and when the Germans invaded in 1941, more than a few Slovenes and Croats saw them as liberators. Jews, of course, did not.
During the Second World War, citizens of Yugoslavia fought the invading Germans, Bulgarians, Hungarians and Italians and also fought each other. Although the Allies originally backed Serbian partisans, they switched their allegiance to Tito’s Communist partisans, who were clearly winning.
At war’s end, ten percent of the country’s population had died but over seventy percent of its Jews had been murdered. Yugoslavia then became a one party state under Tito, who, after breaking with Stalin in 1948, ruled the country until his death in 1980. His country would last just over another decade without him.
Before the break-up in 1991, some 6,500 Jews were living in the country and when Yugoslavia began its decade of wars they began fleeing the country for Israel, England and North America.
Even as of this writing, in 2019, it can be said with the economy continuing to languish (except for Slovenia), a great many of ex-Yugoslavia’s Jews have continued to leave. Very few remain today, although Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Macedonia all maintain lively, spirited communities, despite their miniscule size.
As for Centropa’s interviews: we have been lucky to work with Rachel Chanin in Serbia - an American who speaks excellent Serbian and who is married to Yitzhak Asiel, Serbia's chief rabbi. Aside from Rachel's extensive social welfare and cultural activities, she conducted interviews for us in Serbia and in Macedonia. Over the years, we have also managed to pick up a handful of interviews in Croatia and Bosnia.
In Croatia, Silvia Heim and Lea Siljak conducted two excellent interviews for us in Zagreb. We would also like to call your attention to a book published in 2013 called 1941: The Year That Keeps Returning, by Slavko Goldstein. Professor Goldstein, who died in 2017, was a publisher, Jewish community activist and writer. His memoirs are considered by many to be one of the finest personal stories published on the Holocaust in the past ten years.
Approximately 47,000 Jews lived in Bulgaria before the Second World War and virtually none of the country’s Jews were deported to Nazi death camps. In Bulgarian-occupied Thrace and Macedonia, however, nearly 12,000 Jews were deported; almost none returned.
Approximately 45,000 Bulgarian Jews emigrated to Israel in the late 1940s-1950s. There was no real organized Jewish life until after 1989. The community today, although small, is well organized and quite proud of rebuilding its communal institutions.
Centropa’s Bulgarian interviews were carried out by a team coordinated by Nelly Rousseva of The Bulgarian Photographers’ Association and edited by Mihaylina Pavlov of Shalom, the Jewish Community of Bulgaria.
What you will notice in the pictures we’ve collected in Bulgaria is a high percentage of people dressed in traditional Sephardic costume.
The other great Balkan Sephardic communities of Serbia, Macedonia, Greece, and Bosnia were almost wholly wiped out during the Holocaust, so those family stories, and the images that go with them, are now lost to us.
That makes this particular collection all the more historically important.
Approximately 47,000 Jews lived in Bulgaria before the Second World War and virtually none of the country’s Jews were deported to Nazi death camps. In Bulgarian-occupied Thrace and Macedonia, however, nearly 12,000 Jews were deported; almost none returned.
Approximately 45,000 Bulgarian Jews emigrated to Israel in the late 1940s-1950s. There was no real organized Jewish life until after 1989. The community today, although small, is well organized and quite proud of rebuilding its communal institutions.
Centropa’s Bulgarian interviews were carried out by a team coordinated by Nelly Rousseva of The Bulgarian Photographers’ Association and edited by Mihaylina Pavlov of Shalom, the Jewish Community of Bulgaria.
What you will notice in the pictures we’ve collected in Bulgaria is a high percentage of people dressed in traditional Sephardic costume.
The other great Balkan Sephardic communities of Serbia, Macedonia, Greece, and Bosnia were almost wholly wiped out during the Holocaust, so those family stories, and the images that go with them, are now lost to us.
That makes this particular collection all the more historically important.
Approximately 47,000 Jews lived in Bulgaria before the Second World War and virtually none of the country’s Jews were deported to Nazi death camps. In Bulgarian-occupied Thrace and Macedonia, however, nearly 12,000 Jews were deported; almost none returned.
Approximately 45,000 Bulgarian Jews emigrated to Israel in the late 1940s-1950s. There was no real organized Jewish life until after 1989. The community today, although small, is well organized and quite proud of rebuilding its communal institutions.
Centropa’s Bulgarian interviews were carried out by a team coordinated by Nelly Rousseva of The Bulgarian Photographers’ Association and edited by Mihaylina Pavlov of Shalom, the Jewish Community of Bulgaria.
What you will notice in the pictures we’ve collected in Bulgaria is a high percentage of people dressed in traditional Sephardic costume.
The other great Balkan Sephardic communities of Serbia, Macedonia, Greece, and Bosnia were almost wholly wiped out during the Holocaust, so those family stories, and the images that go with them, are now lost to us.
That makes this particular collection all the more historically important.
