Hana Gasic's cousin Moric Montiljo with his parents David and Rena Montiljo

Hana Gasic's cousin Moric Montiljo with his parents David and Rena Montiljo

My cousin Moric with his parents David and Rena Montiljo. David Montiljo was the firstborn son of Mose and Hana Montiljo, my paternal grandparents. He was born in Sarajevo in 1892 and died there in 1938. Moric was his only child. This is my cousin Moric Montiljo as a young boy with his mother and father, David and Rena Montiljo (nee Montiljo). Moric's father David and my father, Menahem, were brothers. There were eleven children altogether but most were killed during the war. Moric's father died before the war and his mother Rena was killed in the Jasenovac concentration camp in 1942, so that when the war ended Moric was all alone. He married a woman named Vera (who now lives in Belgrade) and had two children, David and Renata. Moric and Vera divorced when their children were grown. He lived in Sarajevo until the war in Bosnia in the 1990s and then went to Israel where he now lives. He still comes back to Belgrade to visit every year, usually for the High Holidays. When he is in town he serves as a shamash and sings on the bimah with the Rabbi and the other chazanim (cantors). Before WWII, he had religious lessons in Sarajevo where the liturgy and other Jewish subjects were drilled into the young students. It is from those days that he recalls the prayers in order to participate in the service.
Open this page