In Yugoslavia, the complete collapse of the state after the Nazi invasion of 1941 left Jews exposed to Nazi and Croatian Ustashi plans. The 20,000 Serbian Jews immediately lost their jobs and civil rights. Many Jews were among hostages shot there in the summer of 1941. In October 1941, all of Serbia's remaining 5,000 adult male Jews were taken to local concentration camps run by German units and killed. In 1942, the remaining population, 15,000 women and children, were killed. Very few Serbian Jews survived the war. (10)
Fascist Croatia had a population of about 30,000 Jews. Between 1942 and 1944 , virtually the entire population was shipped to German death camps and murdered. Around 1,000 Croatian Jews survived the war by seeking refuge in the Italian-occupied areas. Rejecting German demands to hand over Jews in these areas, Italian authorities instead assembled many of those in Italian-occupied Yugoslavia. After the Italian government agreed to an armistice with the Allies in September 1943, Germany occupied the Italian zone of Yugoslavia. Yugoslav partisans helped many former prisoners of avoid capture by German forces. (11)
Another 16,000 Yugoslav Jews survived because they lived in the Italian coastal zone of occupation, or fled there. 8,000 Jews were living in Macedonia, when that province was transferred to Bulgarian rule. (12) In all, by the end of the Second World War an estimated 80% (56,000) of Yugoslavian Jews were dead, those that did survive owed their lives to the fact that the Italian government refused to hand them over to the Germans, no other power in the Balkans was quite so protective of foreign Jews including Bulgaria which handed over non-Bulgarian Jews. (13)
Bulgaria had one of the oldest but smallest Jewish communities in the Balkans, less than 50,000, who on the whole were well treated. In independent Bulgaria, the Jewish community enjoyed a special status with substantial self-administration under a chief rabbi. 95% percent of Bulgarian Jews lived in urban areas, and half of the total lived in Sofia, the capital and largest city. Jews were not integrated into national life, but they were successful in business. (14) On the other hand, Jews dominated no one area of the economy, and there was little resentment of Jews. By and large, Bulgaria's Jews lived separate lives, but without prejudice. Local Jewish groups were active and created a good alternative educational system, which was paid for mostly by the Jewish community. When anti-Semitism occurred in Bulgaria, it did so in imitation of other Balkan societies. Until the 1930s this had little impact, but the influence of Nazi Germany introduced a real pressure. There was a slow growth of anti-Semitic groups in the 1930s but it was not until the war had begun that serious threats arose.
To comply with the wishes of their German allies, the Bulgarians limited the civil rights of Jews in 1940, although not without some objections. In 1942 a
Commissariat for Jewish Affairs was set up, despite objections from the parliament. Jews were now registered. In 1943 German SS forces arrived to begin a deportation program. (15)
Bulgaria did not deport Bulgarian Jews, but as already stated did deport non-Bulgarian Jews from the territories it had annexed from Yugoslavia and Greece. The 14,000 Jews in those regions fell under Bulgarian control, but were not considered to have become Bulgarian citizens. These Jews were the first under Bulgarian authority to be sent to death camps in Poland, and there was little protest from the Bulgarian population. (16)
However when the government threatened Jews citizens of pre-war Bulgaria with deportation and death, political leaders and the Orthodox Church objected, which forced King Boris of Bulgaria to change his mind. The objection of various aspects of Bulgarian society saved its Jewish population. Jews of Bulgarian citizenship were relatively secure from deportation to German-held territory. However, all Bulgarian Jewish men between the ages of 20 and 40 were drafted for forced labour after 1941, and in May 1943 the Bulgarian government announced the expulsion of 20,000 Jews from the capital, Sofia, to the provinces. Protests staged by both Bulgarian Jews and non-Jews were brutally suppressed by the police. Within just two weeks, almost 20,000 Jews had been forcibly expelled from the Bulgarian capital. (17)
In 1944 it became clear that Germany was losing the war, and a new regime nullified the anti-Jewish legislation. In August 1944, the arrival of the Red Army ended fascist influence. Nearly all the Jews of Bulgaria had survived, which besides the saving of Denmark’s Jews was the single most significant protecting of any Jewish population in Nazi-occupied Europe. On the other hand, the Bulgarian authorities permitted the Jews of Macedonia and Thrace to be killed by the Germans. Of the four main Balkan countries, Bulgaria had the lowest number of Jews at the start of the war and also the lowest percentage of Jewish deaths, of its total number of Jews just 22% (14,000) were killed during the Holocaust. (18)
Like Bulgaria, Greece’s Jews had lived there for centuries and in some instances had become the majority of a city's population such as in Salonika. Greek resentment of Jewish prosperity led to boycotts of stores and the establishment of several pogroms, while a Jewish district of Salonika was burned in 1931. The Greek government curbed unrest by suppressing all popular expressions, but could not end resentment towards Jews. When war broke out in 1939 there were 70,000 Greek Jews. Three quarters of these lived in Salonika, where they made up a major part of the city. (19)
When Greece was conquered by the Nazis, 6,000 Jews in Thrace who fell under Bulgarian rule were sent to the death camps. In contrast the 13,000 Jews who lived in the areas of Greece under Italian occupation mostly survived, again this was due to the refusal of Italian government to implement the mass murder of Jews. In general, Italian military authorities protected Jews. Thousands of Jews residing in the German-occupied zone fled to the relative safety of the Italian occupation zone. It was only following the total German occupation of Greece in 1943 that Greece’s Jews were left with little hope. (20)
The remaining 53,000 Greek Jews lived in German-administered areas, mostly in Salonika. During a four month period in 1943 the Jewish population of that city was registered, concentrated in ghettos, and then sent to Auschwitz. Of Greece’s 75,000 Jews at the beginning of World War Two, 77% (54,000) of them would die in the Holocaust, the highest percentage of any of the Balkan states. (21)
A number of noted Holocaust scholars have made efforts to explain why some
Jewish populations in the Balkans fared better during the Second World War than others.
A particularly controversial Holocaust theory is that of eliminationist anti-Semitism in German society. This study by Daniel Goldhagen alleged that the Germans turn
against the Jews were due to the fact that there was a particularly intense enthusiasm for anti-Semitism in this country. Goldhagen’s theory has been met by approval and
disdain in equal measure and one of its greatest criticisms is that it fails to see the Holocaust in a European context that includes the Balkans. Scholar Yehuda Bauer argues that if one accepts Goldhagen’s theory of eliminationist anti-Semitism it can also be applied to the Balkans since the theory was less related to Germany as a nation as the nationalistic regime that existed there in the 1930’s. If one accepts Goldhagen’s theory, which Bauer contests, Bauer argued that the situation was very similar particularly in Romania where an authoritarian nationalistic regime was in power from 1940. (22)
Of the Balkan states in the early part of the war, Romania was the one that took the greatest enthusiasm towards the Final Solution killing more than 250,000 Jews and a further 100,000 Ukrainian Jews (23). It could be argued that “eliminationist anti-Semitism was the norm in this nation” (24) just as in Germany which could explain why Romania has one of the most horrific Holocaust records of any Balkan state. In contrast eliminationist anti-Semitism was not as prevalent in Bulgaria, Greece or even Yugoslavia, where antagonism and discrimination towards Jews was not as great.
The Balkan states were by definition nationalistic states, in which the ethnicity of individuals was an important public matter. Ethnic minorities like Jews were usually easy to identify and often regarded as outsiders and treated with suspicion and hostility.
A leading Jewish scholar Raul Hilberg has identified a repetitious pattern in which the destruction of Jews in the various Balkan countries followed four stages. Firstly Jews were identified on the basis of racial laws which defined people's ethnicity by descent. Secondly there was the confiscation of Jewish property and limitation of rights to hold professional jobs such as a doctor outside of the Jewish community. The effect of this was that the Jewish community was left impoverished and Jews were unable to support resistance groups or escape. Hilberg’s third determinant was to isolate Jews from other citizens by placing them away from the rest of society in ghettos or concentration camps. This not only increased the Jews vulnerability but also removed them from the general public’s consciousness. The final component of Hilberg’s theory was the total annihilation of the Jews. (25)
By the time World War II broke out, stage one of Hilberg’s theory was complete, in all of the Balkan countries, the Jews were a distinct and identifiable minority, even without the intervention of Nazi Germany. As the Nazi’s dominance over Central Europe grew, anti-Semitic legislation in the Balkans was passed to satisfy Nazi Germany thus fulfilling stage two of Hilberg’s theory. The third aspect of Hilberg’s theory was already complete before World War Two in most Balkan countries. Jews in the Balkans had always lived in concentrated groups, especially in cities, in the Greek case, around three quarters of the total Greek Jewish population lived in the city of Salonika. However in Bulgaria the actions of the government according to Hilberg's model, was essential to the survival of the Jews. While the first two aspects of Hilberg’s model were in place in Bulgaria, the decision to banish the Jews from Bulgaria’s cities, thereby scattering them across the country made it impossible for stage three (concentration of Jews in one place) and therefore stage four (extermination of the Jews) to be completed. With stage three of Hilberg’s model completed in Greece, Romania and Yugoslavia, the extermination of the Jews was the next logical step especially in Romania where jump from the past crimes of the Iron Guard regime to the Nazi policy of mass extermination was not a large one
Hilberg’s model for the Balkan annihilation of the Jews is a clear indication of why the numbers of Jews in the Balkans who died vary so greatly. In a society such as Bulgaria where one aspect of the four was missing, a greater number of Jews survived, whereas in countries where all four aspects were present a higher number of Jews died.
While each of the Balkan countries ultimately bears the responsibility for their actions towards the Jews, their relationship with Nazi Germany did play a significant role in the extermination of the Jews in the Balkans. The most significant variable to explain the differences in the number of Jews that died appears to be the degree of direct German control exercised over a territory during the war, and with it the presence or absence of indigenous political authorities, who tended to act as buffers between Nazi leaders and the local populations. In a country such as Croatia, which owed its very existence to the Nazis, Germany established a right wing extreme regime which was determined to strengthen its own position by establishing an authoritarian and nationalistic regime where there was no room for the Jews.
While the murder of the Jews in Romania was also done for nationalistic reasons, Romania enjoyed greater independence from Germany, which allowed Romania to use its Jews as a bargaining device. While it suited the Romanian government to murder Jews it did so, when Germany appeared to be losing the war, the Romanian government altered its Jewish policy to fit with that of the winning side. The highest percentage of Balkan Jews died in Greece and Yugoslavia, the two Balkan states where Germany’s dominance was strongest, in contrast Bulgaria with the greatest independence from the Nazis resulted in the lowest percentage of Jewish death of any Balkan state while Romania was sufficiently free from Nazi control to stop its murder of the Jews when it wanted to.
The Orthodox Church is the major church in the Balkans and its role in the Holocaust has been as controversial as that of the Catholic Church. The role the Orthodox
Church played in saving or not saving Jews in the respective Balkan countries can be seen as being dramatically different in each case as was the impact it had on saving the lives of Jews. Prominent leaders of the Greek Orthodox Church, as well as Greek business leaders and academics vigorously opposed the abuse of Jewish life and the transportation of thousands of Greek Jews, writing to the Greek Prime Minister “What graves is the fate of our fellow Jewish citizens...we hope that the occupation authorities will understand in time the pointlessness of the persecution of
the Greek Jews, who are numbered among the most peaceful and productive elements in the country.” (26) However their words were ignored.
Similarly in Yugoslavia, evidence shows that Orthodox Church ministers pleaded with the government to treat both Jews and Serbs better. In contrast the Romanian Orthodox Church while not approving of the murder of the Jews was deemed “more hostile towards the Jews than the Roman church” and has been accused of a very unfriendly attitude towards the Jews of Romania during the Holocaust. (27)
Only in Bulgaria, did the objection of the Orthodox Church have any real effect, as church ministers were hugely effective in convincing the Bulgarian people that the government’s anti-Jewish policy was wrong which forced the King to reconsider his previous agreement to hand Bulgaria’s Jews over to the Nazis. (28)
It is possible to identify a clear link between the importance of the opinion of the Orthodox Church and the degree to which the country was dependant upon Nazi Germany. In German dominated Greece and Yugoslavia, the Orthodox Church while strong was ignored much like the main churches in Germany. In contrast, in Bulgaria where the Nazis were not so strong, the opposition of the Orthodox Church to the
Final Solution and its careful use of Bulgarian public opinion was a considerable
factor in fewer Bulgarian Jews dying.
Across the Balkans there was differing degrees of assimilation by the Jewish community, however the evidence already shown suggests that this had no significant bearing on its fate. While no Jewish community in the Balkans could be said to have been as integrated as any of the Jewish communities in Western and Central Europe, Yugoslavia’s Jews were probably the most integrated and least discriminated against of any in the Balkans yet almost all of Yugoslavia’s Jewish population died. In contrast the unassimilated Bulgarian Jews nearly all survived. Again we return to the issue of German control, in the countries where Germany was strongest, the degree of assimilation was irrelevant.
It has already been acknowledged that anti-Semitism existed in the Balkans long before the Nazis but it can be argued that the presence or absence of local anti-Semitic traditions made little difference to the percentage of Jews that survived the war. Yugoslav Jews experienced very little pre-war persecution, but nearly all of them died, while half the Romanian Jews survived the war even though Romania had a tradition
of violent anti-Jewish prejudice. Clearly the degree to which the domestic
governments were free to follow their own policy was essential in this case, the Romanian government did not cease to become anti-Semitic when it opted to stop transporting Jews, however it was no longer beneficial to the Romanian state to continue to do so. In contrast in Greece where pre-war anti-Semitism was limited, the Germans were sufficiently powerful to insist that the Final Solution go ahead even when powerful members of Greek society openly opposed it.
The Holocaust was one of the Balkans most shameful periods which saw more than half a million Balkan Jews sent to their deaths. It is perhaps important to acknowledge at this point that nowhere in the Balkans at this time was there a state that could be truly really called a democracy therefore it is difficult to aportion guilt directly to the people of the Balkans. At the same time it must be recoignised that many natives of
the Balkans were anti-Semitic to some degree and welcomed the discrimination towards the Jews. However without the push given by Nazi Germany, the Holocaust
in the Balkans would not have happened, therefore I conclude that the most
significant factor that explains why the deaths of Jews in the Balkan countries varied
so dramatically was the role that the Nazis played in those countries “The chances for the survival of Jews in occupied territories under German control and adminstration were very small.” (29) In countries such as Yugoslavia and Greece where Germany was strongest, the percentage of Jews who died was dramatically greater than in the more independant countries such as Bulgaria and Romania.
FOOTNOTES
(1)Lucy S. Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews 1933-45, Penguin Books (1975)
Appendix B
(2)Walter Laqueur (Editor), The Holocaust Encycolpedia, Yale University Press (2001) p575
(3)Walter Laqueur (Editor), The Holocaust Encycolpedia, Yale University Press (2001) p575
(4)Walter Laqueur (Editor), The Holocaust Encycolpedia, Yale University Press (2001) p575
(5)Lucy S. Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews 1933-45, Penguin Books (1975)
p549
(6)http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/664239/posts
(7)Lucy S. Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews 1933-45, Penguin Books (1975)
Appendix B
(8)Walter Laqueur (Editor), The Holocaust Encycolpedia, Yale University Press (2001) p575
(9)Lucy S. Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews 1933-45, Penguin Books (1975)
p 465
(10)Walter Laqueur (Editor), The Holocaust Encycolpedia, Yale University Press (2001) p707
(11)Walter Laqueur (Editor), The Holocaust Encycolpedia, Yale University Press (2001) p707
(12)Lucy S. Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews 1933-45, Penguin Books (1975)
p 466
(13)Lucy S. Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews 1933-45, Penguin Books (1975)
Appendix B
(14)Walter Laqueur (Editor), The Holocaust Encycolpedia, Yale University Press (2001) p 99
(15)Walter Laqueur (Editor), The Holocaust Encycolpedia, Yale University Press (2001) p 100
(16)Walter Laqueur (Editor), The Holocaust Encycolpedia, Yale University Press (2001) p 100
(17)Lucy S. Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews 1933-45, Penguin Books (1975)
p 462
(18)Lucy S. Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews 1933-45, Penguin Books (1975)
Appendix B
(19)Lucy S. Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews 1933-45, Penguin Books (1975)
p 469
(20)Walter Laqueur (Editor), The Holocaust Encycolpedia, Yale University Press (2001) p 267
(21)Lucy S. Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews 1933-45, Penguin Books (1975)
p 470
(22)Yehuda Bauer : Rethinking the Holocaust, Yale University Press (2002) p106
(23)Yehuda Bauer : Rethinking the Holocaust, Yale University Press (2002) p 106
(24)Yehuda Bauer : Rethinking the Holocaust, Yale University Press (2002) p 107
(25)Hilberg, Raul : Destruction of the European Jews, Quadrangle Books (1961) p 507 (26)Richard Clogg, Greece 1940-1949: Occupation, Resistance, Civil War, Palgrave (2002) p104
(27)Mikhail Shkarovski, Remebering For The Future, The Holocaust in an Age of Genocide (Volume 2), Palgrave, (2001) p490
(28)Lucy S. Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews 1933-45, Penguin Books (1975)
p 462
(29)Milan Ristovic, Remebering For The Future, The Holocaust in an Age of Genocide (Volume 1), Palgrave, (2001) p514
BIBLIOGRAPHY
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/664239/posts - article on revival of Ion Antonescu’s memory in Modern Romania
Walter Laqueur (Editor), The Holocaust Encycolpedia, Yale University Press (2001)
Hilberg, Raul : Destruction of the European Jews, Quadrangle Books (1961)
Gilbert, Martin : The Holocaust, The Jewish Tragedy, Fontana Press (1987)
Yehuda Bauer : Rethinking the Holocaust, Yale University Press (2002)
Richard Clogg, Greece 1940-1949: Occupation, Resistance, Civil War, Palgrave (2002)
Lucy S. Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews 1933-45, Penguin Books (1975)
Milan Ristovic, Remebering For The Future, The Holocaust in an Age of Genocide (Volume 1), Palgrave, (2001)
Mikhail Shkarovski, Remebering For The Future, The Holocaust in an Age of Genocide (Volume 2), Palgrave, 2001
