Introduction
On the eve of the German occupation 82,500 Jews lived in the former Yugoslavia. Only 14,000 survived.
Jasenovac, a large concentration and extermination camp for men was founded on the soil of Croatia and
managed by the fascist Croatian Security Police, called Ustase. It was located at about 100 km south of Zagreb. The women were
interned in the camp of Stara Gradiska, which was further away. Jews as well as Serbians were interned there befor soon being cruelly
slaughtered. Between 20,000 and 25,000 Jews were already murdered there when deportation of the Croatian Jews to Auschwitz for
extermination began in August 1942.
The Jews of Yugoslavian Macedonia and Thrace were controlled by Bulgarian occupation forces, which after
rendering them stateless, rounded them up and turned them over to the Germans for deportation on March 1943.
Located in Lower Saxony, the Bergen Belsen camp was established in April 1943 as a detention camp for
prisoners who were to be exchanged with Germans imprisoned in Allied countries. During the year of 1943, Germans interned
Jews holding nationality of neutral countries such as Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Turkey, etc. there. This how 387 Jews born in
Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Croatia, all provinces of former Yugoslavia, are found among the internees in Bergen
Belsen camp. Unfortunately in early 1944 the camp became a regular concentration camp.
The present index which includes 387 names of Yugoslavian Jewish deportees, is based on the book:
Bergen Belsen; 1940-1945 Niedersachsische Landerzentrale fuer Politische Bildung. Gedenkbuch; haeflinge des Konzentrazionlager
Bergen Belsen. Bergen Belsen, Gedenstatte, 1995. It lists Jews from all the nations who were interned in Bergen Belsen death camp.
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