Bosnia and the Holocaust
Carl Savich has written that "Bosnia-Hercegovina has for over a millennium been a battleground where the world's major religions, civilizations, cultures, and empires have clashed and collided: Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism, the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the medieval Serbian, Croatian,and Bosnian Empires, the East and the West. Bosnia-Hercegovina was the dividing line between East and West, between Catholicism and the West and Orthodoxy, Islam, and Judaism and the East. The churches, the cathedrals,the mosques, and the synagogues are the remaining symbols of this battle and conflict between cultures and empires." (http://www.serbianna.com/columns/savich/006.shtml)
From 1941-1945, Bosnia-Hercegovina was part of the NDH, Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska, the Independent State of Croatia and was one of the bloodiest arenas of the Holocaust and battlefields of the war. With the assistance of Haj Amin el Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and Reichsfuehrer SS Heinrich Himmler, the Bosnian Muslim leadership undertook the systematic extermination of the Jewish and non-Muslim, non-Croat population of Bosnia-Hercegovina. Two Waffen SS Divisions and other Nazi and fascist formations were formed to advance the goals of the Third Reich and of Islam. The goal of the Muslims was to achieve autonomy and independence for Bosnia-Hercegovina under Muslim rule. The period 1941-1945 is crucial in understanding and comprehending the Bosnian civil war of 1992-1995.
On April 10, 1941, Slavko Kvaternik proclaimed the creation of the Independent State of Croatia, Nezavisn Drzava Hrvatska, NDH, following the German invasion and occupation of Yugoslavia. The NDH consisted of the territories of Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, and parts of Serbia and was a Nazi-fascist puppet state created by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, and ruled by the Ustashi ("insurgents"), Croatian Catholic nationalists and Bosnian Muslims. The President or Poglavnik of the NDH was Ante Pavelic, born in Bosnia-Hercegovina, and the Vice-President, from November, 1941 to April, 1945, was Dzafer Kulenovic, a Bosnian Muslim born in Bihac. From April to November, 1941, the Vice-President had been his brother, Osman Kulenovic. The Minister of the Interior was Andrija Artukovic, born in Ljubuski,Bosnia-Hercegovina. The Minister of Justice was Mirko Puk; Slavko Kvaternik was Minister of Army; Mile Budak was Minister of Education and Cults.
From the beginning of the German invasion of Yugoslavia, the Bosnian Muslims had sought to convince the Germans that Bosnia Hercegovina should be a Nazi Protectorate, that is, have an autonomous political existence. In 1941, over 100,000 Bosnian Muslim conscripts were available to fight in the military formations of the Third Reich. Bosnian Muslim soldiers were in the Ustasha death squads, the Domobranci (Home Guards), and the Croatian Army. Bosnian Muslim soldiers were also in the Nazi-Ustasha German-Croatian "Legion" units, such as the 369th, 373rd, and 392nd Infantry Divisions. In The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, 1932-1945, Leni Yahil remarked that the Bosnian Muslims even sent their soldiers to fight on the Russian front as part of the Nazi German forces: "One of their units later joined the German forces fighting in Russia." The 369th Reinforced Croat Infantry Regiment, made up of Croats and Bosnian Muslims, fought at Stalingrad where it was destroyed. The NDH also sent the Italian-Croat Legion, attached to the Italian 3rd Mobile Division, to the Russian front where it was destroyed during the Don retreat.
The Bosnian Muslims formed purely Muslim formations as well, the most important of which was the Muslim Volunteer Legion, led by Mohammed Hadzieffendic. Other Muslim formations were the Zeleni Kadar (Green Cadres), Nazi formations created by deserters from the Home Guards (Domobranci), led by Neshad Topcic, the Muslim nationalist group, the Young Muslims (Mladi Muslimani), Huska Miljkovic's Muslim Army, and the Gorazde-Foca milicijas (policing units).
On July 22,1941, Mile Budak declared that the goal of the NDH was to create a Croat Catholic and Bosnian Muslim state by the extermination of 'foreign elements', which were Jews, Orthodox Serbs, and Gypsies. His statement is as follows: "The basis for the Ustasha movement is religion. For minorities such as Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies, we have three million bullets." He emphasized in a speech on July 6, 1941, that the Bosnian Muslims were to be an integral part of the NDH: "The Croatian state is Christian. It is also a Moslem state where our people are of the Mohammedan religion." Synagogues and Orthodox churches were plundered and destroyed and Jewish rabbis and Serbian Orthodox priests were murdered.
The total Jewish population of Bosnia-Hercegovina was approximately 14,000 in 1941, 10,500 of whom lived in Sarajevo. In the 1931 census,there were 73,000 Yugoslav Jews; in 1941,there were 80,000 Jews, including over 4,000 Jewish refugees from Germany, Austria, and other countries. The Jewish population was broken down as follows:
60% were Ashkenazic and 40% were Sephardic. Interwar Yugoslavia had a thriving and vibrant Jewish community which was organized under the Union of Communities based in Belgrade, Serbia, which had a population of 11,000 Jews. German - occupied Serbia had a population of 16,000 Jews. The NDH had a total population of 40,000 Jews, 11,000 of whom lived in Zagreb. Entire Jewish and Serbian communities in the Sarajevo region were destroyed and Jewish and Serbian men, women, and children were massacred by Bosnian Muslims and Croats. Numerous massacres occurred in the Bosnian towns of Bihac, Brcko, and Doboj. Even the Germans began protesting the bestiality and brutality of these massacres against Jews and Orthodox Serbs. Synagogues and Orthodox churches were plundered and destroyed and rabbis and Orthodox priests were tortured and brutally murdered.
A large percentage of the Bosnian Jewish community was deported between September and November, 1941, to Jasenovac, and Djakovo, and the Loborgrad camp for women from the Kruscica camp, located south of Zenica and Travnik in central Bosnia." (drawn from web page cited above)
for more information, see:
The Holocaust in Bosnia-Hercegovina, 1941-1945
Bosnian Muslims Volunteer En Masse into Nazi SS
Hanjar Book Quote
The photos below are of Jewish sites in Sarajevo, including the Sephardic synagogue and a unique exhibition presented about Righteopus Gentiles from, Bosnia-Hercegovina who saved Jews during the Holocaust. The most interesting photograph is of a veiled Bosnian Muslim woman walking with Jewish friends and covering their yellow stars with their own dress.
There is still a Jewish community in Sarajevo. It became a neutral distribution point for aid during the 1990s Bosnian war.
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 Interior of Synagogue and Bima |
 Vaulting of 15th Century Synagogue |
 View from Balcony Toward Bima |
 View of Outside from Side Alley |
 Text about Siyavush Pasha Allowing the Jews to Stay in Sarajevo, 1580-81 |
 Sign Listing Non-Jewish Rescuers of Jews from Bosnia Herzegovina During the Holocaust: Righteous Among the Nations |
 Righteous among the Nations information about Andelka and Borislav Brkic |
 Righteous among the Nations information about Ratimir Deletis, from Tuzla |
 Righteous among the Nations information about Andrija Latal, from Sarajevo |
 Righteous among the Nations information about Komljenovic family, Sarajevo |
 Righteous among the Nations information about Risto Ristic, from Bileljina |
 Righteous among the Nations sign for Dervis Korkut |
 Book of Righteous among the Nations information in Synagogue |
 Photo of women and children in street together: A Muslim veiled woman, Zejneba Hardaga (right) and Jewish woman, Rivka Kalb (2nd from right) and her children are guided on the streets of Sarajevo in 1941. Zejneba covered the yellow star on the Rivka's left arm with her veil. Bahrija Hardasa, sister-in-law of Zejneba, is on the far left. |
 Typical Jewish wedding photo from Bosnia. Circa 1900 |
