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Contents I The YidsIn the past, anti-semitism was present in the collective consciousness of all the nations of Europe, and so of course in that of the Serbian people. One example of this can be found in the collection of folk tales assembled by the Serbian linguist Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic, "Serbian folk tales" (Srpske narodne pripovjetke), 1853. The story called "The Yids" (Civuti) from this collection is remarkably like the story of "Hansel and Gretel", only with the role of the wicked witch being taken by Jews. "Then there came along some Yids, and when they saw the fire, came up to the children and asked them what they were doing there and whether there was anyone with them, and when the children had told them what and how, the Yids told them to go along with them, saying that they would have a fine time at their house. The children agreed and went with the Yids, and the Yids took them to their house. They didn't have anyone else at home, only their mother, and when they came home, they shut the boy up to get fat and made the girl a servant to their mother. One day, when the boy had been well fed and was fat, the Yids went out on some errand and told their mother to roast him, and then when they came home in the evening from their work, they would eat him..." This story about Jews, who chased after the gentile children with knives and forks to eat them, which presents the Jews as cannibals, was very much alive even after 1848, the year that was a turning point in Europe, after which those who had not had civil rights previously were able to achieve them. However, in spite of all the European movements, it was not until 1878 and the Berlin Congress that the Jews in Serbia were, for the first time in history, able to achieve equality before the law with the other peoples. At Berlin, the countries taking part signed a memorandum and unanimously took the decision that Serbia would be internationally recognized only if she proclaimed the equality of all faiths, which meant that she had to admit full rights to the Jews. The government and Prince Milan Obrenovic IV agreed to
fulfil these conditions, but the government was still desirous of outwitting the world
public in some way. At Berlin, the Congress had made the treaty public, including articles
34 and 35: Serbia and other Balkan countries (for example, Bulgaria and Monte Negro) did not abide by the undertakings they had given in the Treaty of Berlin, including those that were concerned with the rights of minorities. Shortly after the Berlin Congress, in August 1878, its decisions with respect to the Jews were referred to in Serbia by Nikola Jovanovic in his pamphlet "On the Hebrew question in Serbia" (O jevrejskom pitanju u Srbiji): "...Europe has forced the Hebrews on us for us to grant them in our country all the rights that we have acquired and enjoy. But that the Jews or any non-Serb elements should have the same right as those native to Serbia, we challenge and deny." In 1878, before the Berlin Congress, the distinguished
Serbian scientist Vasa Pelagic had published the book "The religious teaching of the
Talmud or the mirror of Yiddish honesty" (Vjerozakonsko ucenje Talmuda ili ogledalo
civutskog postenja) in which he complained that: It was in such an atmosphere that "a few Serbian patriots" printed the booklet called "Don't let us give Serbia to the Yids" (Nedajmo Srbiju Civutima) in which one of the concluding sentences was unambiguously clear: "What then can we expect from the Hebrews in our father-land?" Nothing good, for, as could be seen, "this is a people that is completely useless to our country and highly dangerous for the advancement of our people. And so it is our duty to prevent by every permissible means the spreading and settling of Hebrews in Serbia... And for this reason all patriots are called upon to enrol in the Serbian anti-Hebrew Society, which should be formed as soon as possible, and first of all in Belgrade, where the doors of our fatherland are open wide to the Hebrews... And thus we shall save our fatherland from the Yids." (...) The historical reality of anti-semitism is apparent not only among the Serbs in Serbia, but also among the Serbs in Croatia in the second half of the 19th century. The "Serbian Guardian" (Srbobran), the journal of the Serbian Independent Party, the chief representative of the Serbian minority in Croatia, like the "Soothsayer" (Vrac-pogadjac) published by Sima Lukin Lazic, was replete with derogatory names for Jews and sallies at their expense. "The Soothsayer" greeted the sentence pronounced on Dreyfus, and attacked "Croatian Right" (Hrvatsko Pravo), the journal of the Pure Party of Rights, and the leader of the party, Josip Frank, because they had written sympathetically about the accused. Milan Obradovic, a Serb journalist in Bjelovar at the beginning of the century regularly put next to his name the qualification "anti-semite" or "the first public and main leader of the anti-semitic movement in Croatia" and was one of the leading anti-semite Serbs in Croatia. He wrote and published thirty brochures and pamphlets of a pronouncedly anti-semitic character. His bi-weekly "traveller round the whole world" (Putnik po cijelom svijetu", of which he was founder-owner and editor, put forward such anti-semitic ideas in the number of April 10, 1907, that the city authorities in Zagreb banned the magazine in 1908. Obradovic began his overtly anti-Jewish activities in 1907,
when he published his "Excerpt from the Talmud", in the introduction to which he
states: For the strains that existed among the Serb and Croat political parties in Croatia at the beginning of the 20th century, Obradovic blamed the Jews, who, according to him, had the most to gain. He explains his viewpoint in a pamphlet of a somewhat lengthy title: "How the Jews have for forty years deceived the wretched and ignorant Croats, that they are Croats of the Mosaic faith and thus have enslaved them, frustrated them politically, sucked them dry materially, cramming all the Croatian money into their own tills and pockets." (...) The well known Bishop of Kraljevo, Nikolaj
Velimirovic, whom many members of the Serbian orthodox church look upon as "the
sainted Nikolaj", stressed the values of nationalsocialism and racism in his many
public appearances and written works. In Belgrade, two years after Hitler had come to
power in Germany, the book "The nationalism of St. Sava" was printed, in which,
among much else, Nikolaj stated: He confirmed his enthusiasm for Hitler's nazism a few years
later, in 1939, in his speech on the 550th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo. On this
occasion he said quite openly in the monastery of Ravnica: Bishop Nikolaj's spiritual pattern, the then Patriarch of
the Serbian Orthodox Church, Varnava, also thought and wrote in the spirit of these years.
In January 1937, for example, he made a statement that was printed by the German paper
"Voelkischer Beobachter": Without the slightest sense of theological incongruity, patriarch Varnava announced, also in January 1937, to the "Muenchen Neueste Nachristen", that nobody less than "God had sent to the German people a far-seeing Fuehrer... We believe in the Fuehrer and in the truth of his word." Sve obavijesti oknjigama mozete dobiti putem
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