The monstrosity of the Hungarian and German occupiers is reflected, among other things, in the fact that before the Second World War there were about 1,100 Jews in this town, and only 236 of them survived the Holocaust, of which 68 left Sombor immediately after the formation of the State of Israel in 1948. so now only about fifty of them live in the city of their ancestors.
From the fall of Masada and Vespasian’s demolition of the Great Temple to the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, in a space of two thousand years, the most persecuted people in the world, the Jews, found their way to Sombor, and although there should be no doubt that Jews visited Sombor as early as the Turkish Zeman, the first literate the trace of the stay of a Jew in this town dates back to the first half of the 18th century. In the probate papers of Count Jovan Branković, in 1734, it is stated that he owed 91 forints to a certain Ilija Jevrejin.
Over two centuries, members of this nation made their full contribution to the economic and cultural development of the city, but in April 1944, in just a few days, the occupiers captured 863 members of the Jewish people and sent them to the Auschwitz concentration camp and other Nazi death factories.
– While the column of Jews was moving along the former Bajski Sokak and the current Vojvođanska Street to the railway station, only the gates of the Serbian houses were open, with the hope that someone would manage to hide with them and thereby avoid a terrible fate. There are oral testimonies that in silence and under the cover of night, neighbors opened their doors and silently called them – it could be heard during the ceremonial unveiling of the memorial plaque in the form of an open suitcase with a Star of David and a suitable inscription.
The unveiling of the memorial plaque was attended by Israeli ambassador Jahel Vilan, chief rabbi of the Jewish community in Serbia Isak Asiel, president of the Jewish community in Sombor Sandra Papo Fischer and deputy mayor Ljiljana Tica.
Text and photo: M. Miljenovic
Tags: MEMORIAL PLAQUE DEDICATED JEWS SOMBOR UNVEILED Remembrance martyred fellow citizens
