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JEWISH HERITAGE EUROPE
An Online Resource Centre
BOSNIA HOME PAGE
Sarajevo
Banja Luka
Bihac [Bihač]
Bijeljina
Bosanski Brod
Bosanski Samac [Bosanski Šamac]
Brcko [Brčko]
Bugojno
Derventa
Doboj
Gracanica [Gračanica]
Jajce
Mostar
Podromanija
Rogatica
Sanski Most
Misinci
Srebrenica
Stolac
Travnik
Tuzla
Visegrad
Visoko
Vlasenica
Zenica
Zvornic
By Ruth Ellen Gruber
Jewish refugees from Spain settled in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 16th century, and Ladino (or Judaeo-Spanish) became the local Jewish language. The region was then under Ottoman domination. Jews maintained generally good relations with the majority Christian and Muslim communities. They prospered as merchants, artisans, physicians and pharmacists – at one point in the 19th century, all the doctors in Sarajevo were reported to be Jewish.
After much of Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1878, Ashkenazi Jews settled in Sarajevo and founded their own congregation. Sarajevo became one of the most important Jewish centres in the region, remaining so when the territory became part of Yugoslavia in 1918. About 12,000 out of Bosnia’s 14,000 Jews lived in Sarajevo on the eve of the Second World War. Approximately 8,000 were killed in the Holocaust.
Much of the killing of Bosnian Jews was carried out by the Ustase [Ustaše] (also known as Ustashas or Ustashi), the Croatian nationalist far-right movement which ruled part of Yugoslavia under Nazi protection. By contrast, the communist Partisans fought for liberation from fascism throughout the region.
Post-Second World War communist Yugoslavia was a loose federation of six republics – Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Montenegro – ruled by former Partisan hero Marshal Josip Broz Tito, who died in 1980. Throughout this period, Sarajevo remained one of the main Jewish centres in Yugoslavia. Much smaller Jewish communities existed in such towns as Mostar and Banja Luka.
In the postwar period, Yugoslav Jews belonged to local communities linked in autonomous republic-wide organisations, which in turn were members of a nationwide Federation of Jewish Communities based in Belgrade. Legally, Jews – consisting of about 6,000 people throughout the former Yugoslavia – were recognized as both an ethnic and a religious community. Communist Yugoslavia was not a part of the Soviet bloc, and local Jews were not persecuted or isolated as were those of other communist states. But they further assimilated into society and lost contact with religious life: they were ‘Yugoslavs’ first and ‘Jews’ second. There was only one rabbi in the country.
The Federation of Yugoslav Jewish Communities was responsible for caring for Jewish cemeteries, synagogues and other infrastructure in towns where no communities existed any more. Some of these cemeteries were moved elsewhere, while others were maintained at considerable expense. The Jewish community also erected close to thirty memorials around Yugoslavia, to commemorate Jews who had lost their lives during the war. Throughout the 1980s, there was growing participation in the many activities run by the various Jewish communities, with help from Jewish philanthropic organisations throughout the world.
The dissolution of Yugoslavia began with the secession of Slovenia, and then of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, in 1991. This touched off the series of Balkan wars that left an estimated two hundred and fifty thousand people dead and destroyed thousands of historic monuments.
Bosnia-Herzegovina was the third largest Yugoslav republic, its population comprising Serbs, Croats and Muslims. Because the Jewish community had been largely organised at a national level, the collapse of Yugoslavia into smaller independent countries made the continuation of Jewish institutions particularly difficult, even without the trauma of war and the Jewish emigration that resulted. Gradually the small Jewish communities of the former Yugoslavia, including that of Bosnia-Herzegovina, have recreated themselves as more locally based organisations, rebuilt earlier connections, and expanded their association with Jewish communities and institutions in Israel and Europe alike.
Like many centres of the Ottoman Empire, Sarajevo provided a haven for Jewish refugees from Iberia after their expulsion from Spain in 1492, and the persecutions and forced conversions that took place subsequently in Spanish and Portuguese lands throughout the world.
Spanish speaking Jews settled in Sarajevo in the 16th century; the ruling vizier had built a Jewish quarter known as El Cortijo (or El Cortio) for them by the end of the century, including a synagogue and housing for the poor. This was not a ghetto, as Jews had freedom of movement and lived in other parts of the city, but the congregation of Jews into one quarter was in keeping with the historic pattern in Spain, as well as the custom of segregating the ‘nationalities’ who inhabited the cities of the Byzantine and (later) Ottoman empires. El Cortijo burned down in 1879.
When the Nazis marched into Sarajevo in April 1941, between 8,000 and 12,000 Jews lived in the city. The Nazis and their Ustaše allies sacked the eight synagogues of the city, and destroyed or stole most Jewish treasures and archives. Most of the community were deported to the concentration camps of Jasenovac and Stara Gradiska (both now in Croatia. About 85% of the Sarajevo community perished during the war. Of those who survived, many emigrated to Israel.
Today, the city is home to a small but vibrant Jewish population of about 700 people. See Hecht 2007 for a recent portrait of this community.
Built in 1902 on the south bank of the Miljacka river, this Moorish-style building is the only functioning synagogue in Sarajevo today. Designed by architect Karl Parzik, who also designed the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1913), the synagogue has a dusty pink exterior defined by four massive corner towers, each topped with a pointed dome made of wood and covered with copper sheeting. Inside, it has elaborate neo-Moorish decorations, with horseshoe arches, busy arabesques and geometrical wall ornamentation. At its entrance is a monument in the form of a stone menorah commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Jewish presence in Bosnia.
Originally, the richly-painted building had enormous arches, women’s galleries supported by columns, and a high, ornate ceiling dominated by a ten-pointed star. The synagogue did not suffer significant damage during the Second World War, but it underwent radical reconstruction in 1964-6 to increase the space available for community activities. A layer of reinforced concrete laid on steel beams was installed at the level of the women’s galleries, so as to divide the sanctuary into two levels. The upper level is used for worship and has retained the upper parts of the original elaborate decoration. The ground floor is used for Jewish community functions and for storage.
Address
Hamdije Kresevljakovika 59
Il Kal Vjezu
Located in Velika Avlija, the former Jewish quarter of the city, the Old Synagogue (known locally as Il Kal Vjezu) was built in 1581, and damaged by fires of 1697 and 1788. This three-storey stone building is one of the most architecturally impressive pre-modern synagogues in the world. The narrow, three-bay long main space of the central prayer hall has thick walls which support a series of interior domes, echoing the arrangement of many Byzantine churches and Ottoman mosques, but contrasting with both: more emphatically axial than a mosque, but without the crossing that would be normal in a church. The main space is surrounded on three sides by galleries on two levels. At one end there is an apsidal space for an Aron Kodesh.
The synagogue was once richly decorated, and presumably the stone walls were once covered with plaster and painted. Abandoned following the Second World War, a Jewish Museum was established in the building in 1966, and most of the synagogue’s ornamentation was removed. An agreement with the Sarajevo City Museum to operate the museum remained in effect until 1992. However, the museum closed during the war of the 1990s, moved out of its main building, and used the synagogue as an office and a warehouse for its holdings.
The museum has now moved its offices once again, and the synagogue was rededicated in 2004. It is now both a place of worship and a museum, cultural and educational centre. A new Ark has been installed in the apsidal space designed for this use, and on special occasions the ground floor is used for services. The two upper floors, which consist of arched stone balconies surrounding the sanctuary area, house historical exhibits. These displays make clear the richness of pre-Holocaust Jewish life in Sarajevo and give an outline of the history of the Holocaust in Bosnia.
Opening hours:
Monday - Friday:
Saturday - Sunday:
10:00 - 17:00
10:00 - 13:00
Address
Telephone
Velika Avlija 2
+387 33 663 473
Il Kal Nuevu
Next door to this old synagogue is a newer one, founded in 1746 and now used as an art gallery. The now-nondescript building is still owned by the Jewish community, which maintains the gallery and holds exhibitions of Judaica there. The Jewish Museum is expanding its permanent collection by claiming a single work from every exhibition held in the space. An apartment upstairs was the home of the undertaker who traditionally maintained the Jewish cemetery.
Address
Mula Mustafe Baseškije 38
Built in 1901, this building has today been divided into flats.
Now the Bosnian Cultural Centre
This domed building, built in 1930, was one of the largest synagogues in the Balkans. It combined traditional Ottoman-inspired forms with the restrained decorative preferences of modernism. Partially destroyed in the Second World War, it stood abandoned until 1965, when the Jewish community offered it to the city of Sarajevo for use as a cultural centre. Most of the synagogue’s surviving interior and exterior decoration was removed during the conversion process.
The architect, Rudolf Lubynski (1873-1935), was one of the most prominent Croatian architects of the early twentieth century. He is perhaps best known for the Royal University Library and Royal State Archives (now Croatian State Archives) in Zagreb (Croatia), of 1911-13. Lubynski was a student of architect J. Durm at the Technical High School in Karlsruhe (Germany), and his works in Germany include the university library at Heidelberg.
A menorah-shaped monument in the atrium of the building marks the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the Jews in Ottoman Bosnia. It was designed by the architect Zlatko Ugljen (b. 1929), professor of architecture in Sarajevo. Ugljen is probably best known for designing the White Mosque in Visoko (Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1980), for which he was awarded the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1983.
The monument was dedicated on 25 December 1965 as part of the reopening of the building as Djuro Djakovic, the worker’s university. It is now the Bosanski Kulturni Centar, or Bosnian Cultural Centre.
Address
Branilaca Grada 24
71000 Sarajevo
This is one of the most famous Sephardi burial grounds in the world, renowned for its age and beauty. It is also the oldest intact burial ground of any religious group in Sarajevo. It was founded in 1630 by Rabbi Samuel Baruch, who rented the land on Mount Trebevic from the Muslim community; the rabbi’s gravestone is among those standing on the steeply-sloping site.
Clusters of abandoned homes flank the site, many ruined during the 1992-6 siege of the city. During the Austro-Hungarian era, a railroad was constructed through the middle of the cemetery, and only the upper half of the site has survived. Even this is still large: about three and a half hectares, containing about 3,800 graves.
The cemetery is surrounded by a massive stone wall, surmounted in places by a metal fence. There are five gates made of hammered iron from the village of Kreshevo. The wall and gates were erected between 1926 and 1930 when the cemetery was expanded, especially to the north, where the grand north gate, the cemetery’s main entrance, has a triple-arched gateway. Near to this gate was erected the cemetery’s main architectural attraction, a large Ohel complex.
A flight of steps leads up the hill from the main gate towards a Holocaust monument. To the left of the path is an area set aside for gravestones from the Ashkenazi cemetery, which was closed in 1959. The remains themselves – comprising some 900 individuals – were placed in a common grave under a single monument. There are also memorials to Jews who were killed in the First World War and further Holocaust monuments, one of which is described below. In this area there is also believed to be a ritually buried cache of sacred objects.
The oldest stones in the cemetery are in the sections furthest from the enclosing walls. Their form is unique in Europe: large, rounded in shape and lying horizontally, often set into the hillside. The stone for these monuments were quarried nearby. They are almost identical in size and form, giving the hillside a patterned appearance. Only the gravestones of prominent rabbis and scholars were made larger or more lavish. The older stones are only inscribed in Hebrew; later ones have inscriptions in both Hebrew and Ladino, which include poetic epigraphs. Most of the monuments erected after 1878 are modelled on the funerary monuments of other religions.
The cemetery was vandalised a number of times before and after 1966, when all the city’s religious cemeteries were closed and a municipal cemetery opened, with sections for each religion. During the siege of Sarajevo, the Old Sephardi cemetery was in the front line of fighting; indeed it was the site of one of the Bosnian Serbs’ main artillery positions. Considerable damage occurred as a result of returned fire from the city below. The Ohel, only recently fully restored, was shelled and burned in 1994. The Bosnian Serbs extensively mined the cemetery before their withdrawal.
After the end of hostilities, an international effort was made to restore the cemetery. The first phase consisted of the de-mining of the site, completed in 1998. The second phase is the restoration of the Ohel, funded in large part by contributions from the United States Government and matched by grants from the city and region of Sarajevo.
This striking structure, designed by Franz Scheiding and erected between 1926 and 1930, stands in a dominant position with a commanding view of Sarajevo, on a steep east-west slope near the main entrance to the cemetery. It is a cruciform two-storey stone building, with its main door to the east and an apse to the west, over 13 metres wide and topped by a low dome 10.2 metres high.
The main door gives access to the upper storey. It is flanked by pilasters decorated with shallow reliefs. A pointed pediment above contains a
Magen David and has a Decalogue at its apex. Acroteria on the corners bear carvings of acanthus leaves and mask the building’s gutters.
A separate western gate provides burial society officials with access to the lower floor, now an apartment for the cemetery caretaker. The third entrance, on the south side, was used to bring the deceased to an area devoted to its preparation for burial. Here was a table made of artificial stone where the body would be washed. From here, the coffin would be carried directly into the apse of the main hall, where it lay during the funeral service.
This main hall itself is octagonal and about six metres high. Short arms emerge on four sides; that to the west, where the coffin lay, has a deep, high apse under a half-dome; the main entrance is opposite. The northern and southern arms are rectangular and have barrel vaults. The central dome is made of oak which has been plastered and painted white. The pendentives which support this dome bear painted medallions, today carrying the [Hebrew] inscription ‘Righteous and upright is He’ (Deuteronomy 32:4).
The building has been altered several times. A restoration took place in the early 1990s, only for serious damage to occur in 1994, a casualty of the building’s strategic location during the Bosnian war. A second restoration, which began in 1998 under architects Sakib Okivic, Berislav Kutni and Krvavac Zijo, has made some alterations to the building’s design. The basement level has been converted into a caretaker’s apartment; the zinc roof covering replaced with copper; lost details, such as the small chimneys that occupy two corners of the roof were identified in historic photographs and reinstated. The inscriptions beneath the dome were repainted; only one was legible, and it was decided to repeat this on the other three sides. The interior of the dome itself, once decorated, has been painted white.
The Holocaust monument is located in the central part of the Old Cemetery, near the edge of the oldest, pre-1878 part of the site. It was designed by Jahiel Finci and built in 1952. Events are held here to mark the anniversaries of events associated with the National Liberation war of 1941-5. It was damaged by artillery fire during the war of 1992-5 and has not been repaired. It bears commemorative inscriptions in Hebrew and Serbo-Croat.
In 1941 the Nazis brought a group of Jews and Serbs to the cemetery and killed them there. The monument commemorates this event and is located in the upper part of the cemetery, near the eastern wall. It was built in 1952; its designer remains unknown. Access is via a narrow path from the Holocaust monument.
Location
Outside the city, at Kovacici on Mt. Trebevic
Bare, Sarajevo’s municipal cemetery, was established on 1 January 1966 and is still in use. The Jewish section of this cemetery serves Sephardi and Ashkenazi communities alike. It is half a hectare in area, and is marked by a sign in Serbo-Croat. It currently contains 354 gravestones, their inscriptions in Hebrew and Serbo-Croat. The cemetery has a regular caretaker and has never been vandalised. Within it there is an Ohel; one of the five chapels in the centre of the cemetery as a whole is designated for Jewish use.
Immediately after their 1878 occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Austro-Hungarian empire built fortifications throughout its new territory. One of those overlooking Sarajevo is in an almost impregnable position, and has never been captured by an enemy force. Known as Vraca, it was built in 1898 to the south of the city. This blockhouse has walls over 1.70 metres thick; during the Second World War it was the site of thousands of Nazi executions. The victims included men and women of all ages, whether communist or Partisan, Serb, Moslem, Croat or Jew.
In 1981 the City of Sarajevo restored Vraca, turning it into a memorial park and museum dedicated to fallen anti-fascist heroes, the National Liberation Army, and other victims of fascism. The park was created by the sculptor Alija Kucukalic [Kučukalić] and the architects Vladimir Dobrovic [Dobrović] and Aleksandar Maltaric.
The park is dominated by a large memorial. Here the names of the 9,091 people of Sarajevo who died here and elsewhere in the Second World War are inscribed on the stone walls of two inner atria; among them are 7,262 Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Walls of black granite flank the wide ramp that leads into the monument, and here are engraved the names of a further 2,013 fallen Partisans from Sarajevo, 354 of them Jews. A memorial fountain sits in the centre of the complex. It is a round structure of black marble, bearing the names of 26 ‘popular heroes’ of Sarajevo – three of whom are Jewish.
The complex was heavily damaged in the Balkan War of the 1990s; the museum building was totally destroyed. The monument itself was badly damaged and many of the names inscribed on it were lost. The outer structure, which is mostly made of granite, was less damaged, and the names of Partisans and popular heroes here are better preserved. A restoration project was begun under architects Lidvina Simic [Šimić] and Amer Sulejmanagic in December 2001, but due to a lack of funds the project has had to be postponed. The memorial park is owned by the municipality and was listed as a national monument immediately after it opened in November 1981.
Location
Trebevicka Cesta
Ustaše prison and place of execution
The Villa Wilkert, a large structure at 18 Skenderija St in the centre of Sarajevo, was seized in 1941 by the Ustaše. For the next four years it operated as a prison and place of execution. Vjekoslav ‘Max’ Luburic, commander of the Jasenovac concentration camp, was based here from autumn 1944 until spring 1945; the building became known as the ‘Villa Luburica’. During Luburic’s reign of terror, hundreds of Serbs, Jews and communists were tortured and killed in the building’s basement, many of them by Luburic himself. The authorities exhumed dozens of corpses from the villa garden immediately after Sarajevo was liberated.
The building was subsequently torn down and a kindergarten built on the site. Annual commemorations marked events associated with the National Liberation war of 1941-5 until 1992, but these have been held less frequently since the end of the Balkan war in 1995. A marble commemorative plaque marks the site of the building.
Address
Skenderija 18
71000 Sarajevo
The magnificent 14th-century Sarajevo Haggadah, one of the great symbols of the Jewish presence in the Balkans, is on display here. This illuminated manuscript is the most extensively illustrated of any surviving medieval Haggadah.
The Haggadah is an Iberian manuscript, brought to Sarajevo by Jews fleeing Spain. It has been in the possession of the Sarajevo National Museum since 1894. It was hidden in a remote mountain village during the Second World War, and was kept in an underground bank vault during the Bosnian War of the 1990s. In 1995, the (Muslim) President of Bosnia, Alija Izetbegovic, brought it with him to a Passover seder to dispel rumours that it had been sold to purchase weapons. Its reappearance was a powerful affirmation of the resilience of Sarajevo and the city’s dedication to its multi-ethnic traditions. The manuscript is now displayed in a special room at the museum, along with valuable religious texts from other faiths.
Address
Telephone
Email
Website
Approximately 50 Jews live in Banja Luka, Bosnia’s second city and de facto capital of the republic of Srpska.
Two synagogues existed before the Second World War. Both have been destroyed.
The Jewish cemetery was established in 1883. In 1977 the bodies in it were exhumed and transferred to the new Jewish section of the municipal cemetery. The remains of those without living relatives were placed in a common grave and a single monument created on which all their names were inscribed; those whose families were still alive were reburied with their existing gravestones. Today, in addition to the communal grave, there are about 25-50 tombstones in the cemetery; their inscriptions are in Hebrew, German and Serbian. There is also a Holocaust memorial.
The cemetery, owned by the municipality, is located at the centre of Bihač, a city 200 kilometres from Sarajevo. It was established in 1875; the last known burial was in 1940. It is a large enclosure: 16 hectares, surrounded by a broken masonry wall and a broken fence.
The cemetery’s solid brick boundary wall, visible in photographs of 1940, was destroyed by the Ustaše in 1943 and only fragments survive. The site has been encroached upon by housing. Fewer than 100 gravestones are visible, and many of these are no longer in their original positions. It is heavily overgrown and has in recent years been used as a waste dump.
Address
28 Isaka Samokovlije Str.
Islamovac
This dilapidated Jewish cemetery was founded between 1860 and 1878. It currently covers about 0.05 hectares: less than half the area it covered before the Second World War. The 75 or so tombstones are mostly 20th century, with inscriptions in German and Serbo-Croat. The last known Jewish burial was in 1940; there have been no Jews in Bijeljina, and hence no maintenance, since the 1950s. A fence surrounds part of the original area, but there is nothing to prevent access. Parts of the site have been built on; gravestones have been vandalised and many probably stolen. Very few inscriptions survive, and almost all are damaged.
Address
Cara Urosa Str.
The Jewish community of this town, which is about 100 kilometres from Sarajevo, was completely destroyed by the Ustaše, along with their cemetery and prayer house. The site of the cemetery, founded in 1880, is now a rubbish dump. One section of the town’s new municipal cemetery is reserved for Jews, but with no community, it remains empty. The few survivors who returned after the Second World War are buried over the river Sava, in the Croatian city of Slavonski Brod.
Location
Sanac
The cemetery was established in 1906 and was in use until 1941, when the Ustaše killed most of the Jews of Samac [Šamac], destroyed their prayer house and damaged their burial place. No Jews returned after the Second World War and a railway crossing was placed on the site in 1948. The site is now a dump, though the bases of tombstones are still recognisable beneath the rubbish.
Location
Pisavina
Brčko stands on the border with Croatia, about 120 kilometres from Sarajevo. The 150 Jews in the town were slaughtered by the Ustaše on 10 December 1941 on the bridge over the river Sava, which marks the border. A week later, on 16 December, 236 Jewish refugees from Austria suffered the same fate.
Remnants of the town’s abandoned Jewish cemetery were obliterated in 1988 by the construction of a new road. However a local Serbian Orthodox priest, Slavko Maksimovic, rescued some of the remaining gravestones and transferred them to the Serbian Orthodox cemetery. With the consent of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Belgrade and the Jewish Community in Sarajevo, Father Maksimovic arranged for the erection of a Holocaust monument comprising four of the recovered gravestones and a memorial of black marble. A simple text commemorates the events of 1941.
Address
Serbian Orthodox Cemetery, Zmaj-Jovina St.
In the late 1970s, the municipality installed a memorial plaque in the middle of the Sava bridge. It was lost when the bridge was destroyed during the Bosnian war of the 1990s. After the Dayton Agreement the bridge was restored and a new plaque made, now located on the Bosnia-Herzegovina side of the bridge. It is a granite monument, inscribed in Serbo-Croat.
Location
Bridge over the river Sava, near the Gunja border crossing
In 1989, a plaque commemorating the fate of 286 Austrian and German Jews killed on the Sava bridge on 16 December 1941 was installed in the Sipad furniture factory by a local group of veterans of the Partisans. Since then, the factory has been renamed and privatised, and the future of the monument is uncertain. It is a marble plaque, inscribed in Serbo-Croat, and is free-standing inside the factory.
Address
Majevica furniture factory
28 Brace Cuskica Street
The cemetery was established in 1908 and also served the Jewish communities of Duvno, Kupres, Donji, and Vakuf. The last known Jewish burial was in 1940. Almost all the Jews of Bugojno were slaughtered in 1941; after the war, the city authorities fenced the site to prevent development impinging on it. In the event no Jews returned to the town. The cemetery and its Ohel were damaged heavily in the Bosnian war and have not been repaired, and the gravestones are neglected and deteriorating. Nevertheless, the cemetery retains its original size. The oldest remaining gravestone is from 1918. Inscriptions are in Hebrew, German, and Serbo-Croat.
Address
Vrbaska Street, Gromile
70230 Bugojno
The Jewish Community in Derventa was completely destroyed in the Holocaust. Just two survivors returned after the Second World War.
The Moorish-style Synagogue, built in 1911, was heavily damaged by the Ustaše in 1941 and what remained of it collapsed in 1950. Residential buildings now occupy the site.
More than a third of the site of the neglected Jewish cemetery has been encroached upon by development. In 2005, hundreds of landmines, planted here during the Bosnia war – during which heavy fighting caused further damage – remained uncleared.
A forested hillside near this town, about 80 kilometres from Sarajevo, is the site of a series of multi-ethnic cemeteries. Although they are divided by religion, no fence separates one from another, and there are crosses in the midst of the Jewish section. This was founded between 1876 and 1888 and contains about 100-150 gravestones; many monuments reflect the relative wealth of the community in former times. The inscriptions are in Hebrew, Ladino, Serbo-Croat, and German. The oldest stone is from 1887. There are portraits on some of them. The cemetery is owned by the Jewish community and is still in use.
Location
Hillside in Bare, outside the town
Through the gates of a private garden can be seen six of the original ten gravestones, survivors of the small Jewish cemetery founded on this site in 1885. The land is claimed by a neighbour, who does not allow access or maintenance. The epitaphs are in Hebrew, Ladino, and Serbo-Croat.
Twenty Jewish gravestones with inscriptions in Hebrew and Ladino survive from this cemetery, now on private land, in this historic town in central Bosnia. The site has no fence, but is looked after well by its Muslim owner.
Construction of a new synagogue and Jewish cultural centre was begun with much fanfare in 2001, following an initiative of the former mayor, Safet Orucevic [Oručević]. The project, however, has not proceeded further (see Gruber 2001).
The synagogue was erected in 1902 and served the community until 17 November 1942. The Jewish community was then deported to Croatian concentration camps, from which few returned. Early in 1944 the synagogue was burnt by Ustaše and Nazi forces. It was reclaimed after the war by Jewish survivors, who took out a large loan to cover the costs of refurbishment. The community eventually defaulted on repaying this loan, and the building was turned into a puppet theatre. The adjoining house, once the home of the rabbi, is now used by the theatre as an office.
EU money funded further restoration work after the 1990s war. A broken stone Decalogue was found during these renovations; it is displayed on the ground near the great stairway that leads to the synagogue/theatre entrance. It is the only evidence of either building’s Jewish origins.
The cemetery was established sometime between 1890 and 1904. The 0.2-hectare site is surrounded by a stone wall with an iron gate on the west side. It contains 50-100 gravestones, the oldest of which is dated 1904. Some stones have portraits on them; inscriptions are in Serbo-Croat, Hebrew, and Ladino. Restoration work was carried out with support from the EU in 1996. The cemetery is still in use and is looked after by the Jewish Community of Mostar. Although the front gate is kept locked, the key can be requested at the petrol station opposite.
A large and impressive Holocaust memorial was dedicated in 1999. It was the work of sculptor Florijan Mickovic [Mičković], designed by architects Zdravko Gutic [Gutić], Edo Kadribegovic [Kadribegović] and Zoran Mandelbaum. See
www.centarzamir.org.ba/jevreji/kun_eng.html.
Location
Sutina, at the northern entrance to Mostar
A commemorative monument was erected on 27 July 1973 to mark the place where the Germans executed 54 locals, most of them Partisans. Among the dead were 25 Jews from the town of Rogatica. The monument is surrounded by a fence with a broken gate.
A Moorish-style Sephardi synagogue was built here in 1928; it stands in ruins.
Established in 1900 and standing on the western slope of one of the hills outside the town, the Jewish cemetery is reached with difficulty. It is small, with 16 gravestones above ground and ten more, presumably older ones, sunk into the earth. There is a modest memorial to those who perished in the Second World War. The cemetery is surrounded by a damaged concrete wall. Inscriptions are in Hebrew, Ladino and Serbo-Croat.
This cemetery was established in 1903; the last known Jewish burial was in 1940. The 0.02-hectare site is surrounded by an ungated and broken masonry wall. The gravestones all date from the 20th century; inscriptions are in Hebrew and Serbo-Croat. Almost the entire Jewish population was destroyed in the Holocaust and no survivors returned. Apart from a cleaning in 1990, the cemetery was left untended. It is completely abandoned and heavily overgrown.
Ironically, this monument, which commemorates 5,500 inhabitants of the area killed during the Second World War, was itself ‘ethnically cleansed’ in the 1990s.
Built in 1972, it was designed by the sculptor Petar Krstic [Krstić]. Its central element is a ten-metre-high flame-like structure made of steel plates, representing the resistance of the people and their victory over fascism. The paths which criss-cross the site are lined with stone tablets bearing the names of those who died.
However, in its current form, only names of Serbian and Jewish origin are visible, together with ‘unknowns’: all others have been removed. Other inscriptions now refer to the Serbian and Jewish victims of fascism and the Holocaust: no Muslims or Croatians. The monument’s inscriptions are in Cyrillic; it displays both a Magen David and an Orthodox cross. Much of this must date from the period when the town was under Serbian rule. In another twist, by 2004 the town had become entirely Muslim; the monument had not at that date been repaired.
formerly Veliki Prnjavor
A 15th or 16th-century Jewish monument inscribed in Bosnian Glagolitic letters was recently discovered in the Catholic cemetery of this village.
Location
Kamenje cemetery, Misinci, Socanica
There were silver mines in the area in the Middle Ages, and a Jewish cemetery is known to have existed by 1398. A dozen or so gravestones were still visible before the Second World War. However, researcher Ivan Ceresnjes [Čerešnješ] has found no local memory or record of its location, and it is possible that a road has been built over the site.
A prayer house for pilgrims visiting the tomb of Rabbi Danon, built in 1832, has recently been rebuilt after falling into ruin. It is a simple one-roomed building on a raised terrace opposite the cemetery.
The revered Rabbi Moshe Danon (d. 1830) is buried in a small cemetery at Stolac. The complex was restored and partially reconstructed in 1989 under the direction of Ivan Čerešnješ.
The cemetery is now surrounded by a low stone wall with a metal gate. This was erected as part of the 1989 renovation. Inside, a stone path leads diagonally to the grave of Rabbi Danon, before branching around the tomb in three curving paths, evoking the form of a seven-branched menorah. The central branch is the tomb itself, which consists of a large single stone – long, narrow, and about waist high, with a curved top. It appears that the stone may once have been plastered and painted red, or red and white. The front of the stone has the following inscription, in Hebrew and Ladino: ‘This stone is placed here so that it can be as a sign and monument of the burial of the saintly person whose works were wondrous and of whom it was said that he was pious and saintly. He was our master teacher and great Haham Rav Moshe Danon. His good works aid us. Amen. He left this world on the 20th day of Sivan 5590’.
The site is shaded by several mature trees. It also contains the graves of two Jewish soldiers, members of the Austrian army who died in the area at the turn of the last century. One of these has no inscription; the other, in German, bears the name of Arnold Silberstein (d 1889).
Location
Krajsina, a few kilometers west of Stolac, south of the main road into the town
Further information on Rabbi Danon of Stolac and his tomb can be found in Schwartz 1999 and Schwartz 2002.
The New Synagogue, built in 1860, has been used since the Second World War as a metal workshop. Its predecessor, built in 1768, was destroyed in 1860.
The Jewish cemetery was founded in 1762. It sits next to the Catholic cemetery on a hillside outside the town. There are some 250-300 tombstones, with inscriptions in Hebrew and Ladino. In the centre is a simple Holocaust monument: a cubical concrete pedestal on which are positioned three of what appear to be the cemetery’s oldest tombstones. The site is quite overgrown with vegetation.
Travnik city museum has a collection of Jewish ritual objects. Silver artefacts include Megillah (Scroll of Esther) cases and a silver prayer book cover believed to have belonged to one of the city’s oldest Jewish families. The objects were discovered in 1989 during the digging of foundations for a new house.
The small Sephardi synagogue was built in 1936, and confiscated by the state in 1950. It is now a dry cleaners. The Ashkenazi synagogue, demolished in 1955, was built in 1902.
The Jewish cemetery was established in 1900. It lies outside of the town, and is fenced and gated; it is reasonably well-preserved, if poorly maintained. The edges are heavily overgrown. Inscriptions on gravestones are in Hebrew, Ladino, German, and Serbo-Croat.
The Sephardi synagogue was built in 1905. Its two-towered façade is otherwise plain in design. It is now the local headquarters of the Red Cross.
The Jewish cemetery of 1882 lies outside the town; it replaced an earlier cemetery whose site lay on the path of a new railway line. Although the graves within it appear to be in reasonable condition, the place looks abandoned. It is partly fenced and ungated.
Outside town, on the slope of the hill, is a small but relatively well-maintained Jewish cemetery, founded in the mid-19th century and containing 25-50 tombstones. It is surrounded by a gated fence. The Jewish community in Sarajevo takes care of the cemetery; older members visit regularly. Inscriptions on gravestones are in Hebrew, Ladino, German, and Serbo-Croat.
The Jewish cemetery was established in 1875. By 2000 it was being used as the town rubbish dump. At that date it was cleaned up for the survey undertaken by Ivan Čerešnješ, but its condition since is unknown. Twenty tombstones are intact and five broken ones are also visible. There is no fence, and no maintenance is known to take place. Inscriptions on gravestones are in Hebrew and Ladino.
The former synagogue, a Moorish-style building, was given to the municipality in the 1960s in exchange for two residential flats; today it is used as the town museum. The move was initiated by an impoverished Jewish community which thus has no claim to the site. The building is well-maintained, though no original interior features are visible. The sanctuary has been divided into two floors with an exhibition area downstairs and storage above. The small museum office occupies part of the former women’s gallery, above what was once the vestibule. The museum has a collection of Jewish ritual objects which include silver Torah finials from 1896, Hanukah menorot, and Torah staves with mother-of-pearl inlays.
Address
Telephone
Muzej Grada Zenice, Jevrejska 1
032 02 020
This 1875 cemetery lies on a steep, north-facing hillside outside the town. It is fenced and gated but heavily overgrown; only a few stones near the front are accessible. Inscriptions are in Hebrew/Ladino and German.
Location
Raspotocje, outside the town
Built in 1902 to serve a mixed Sephardi and Ashkenazi community, this building is today a private dwelling. There is no exterior sign that it was a synagogue, but inside, the wooden painted ceiling remains intact, hidden in the attic.
The cemetery was founded in 1890. It is situated near the road outside of town, and in 2000 was in use as a vegetable garden. The monuments are barely visible. There is a makeshift fence, but no gate and no maintenance.
Jewish Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina:
Address
Telephone
Fax
Email
Hamdije Kresevljakovica 83
71000 Sarajevo
+387 71 663 472
+387 71 663 473
jakob_99@yahoo.com
This page relies heavily on information in two reports supported by the United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad: Gruber 2002 and Ceresnes [Čerešnješ] (forthcoming). Ivan Čerešnješ is the former president of the Jewish Community of Sarajevo.
Beiser, Vince. ‘A will to survive’, The Jerusalem Report, 2 May 1996.
Bosnian Culture Days. Bosniens Juden: Legende-Tradition-Leben, Vienna, October-November, 1996.
Center for Jewish Art, Jerusalem. ‘Bosnia/Herzegovina and Croatia: Documenting Jewish art and architecture’, CJA Newsletter, 15, Summer 2000:
http://cja.huji.ac.il/NL15-yugoslavia.htm (accessed January 2008).
Ceresnes [Čerešnješ], Ivan. Caught in the Winds of War: Jews in the Former Yugoslavia. Jerusalem: World Jewish Congress, 1999.
Ceresnes [Čerešnješ], Ivan/United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad. Jewish Heritage Sites in Bosnia and Herzegovina (forthcoming).
Gotovac, Vedrana. Sinagoge u Bosni i Hercegovnini. Sarajevo: Muzej Grada Sarajeva, 1987.
Gruber, Ruth Ellen. ‘Serbs demand their “share” of rare Sarajevo Haggadah’,
Jewish Telegraph Agency, 24 December 1998.
Gruber, Ruth Ellen. ‘New synagogue project unites Bosnians of different backgrounds’,
Jewish Telegraph Agency, 25 April 2001.
Gruber, Ruth Ellen. 'Sarajevo Haggadah restored – Next up: putting it up on display',
Jewish Telegraph Agency, 9 January, 2002.
Gruber, Ruth Ellen. Jewish Heritage in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Preliminary Report to the United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad (2002).
Gruber, Ruth Ellen. ‘Priceless 14th-century Haggadah on permanent display in Sarajevo’,
Jewish Telegraph Agency, 3 December 2002.
Gruber, Ruth Ellen. ‘After 60 years, prayer returns to historic Sarajevo synagogue’,
Jewish Telegraph Agency, 27 September 2004.
Gruber, Ruth Ellen. ‘Illuminated Sarajevo Haggadah is being reproduced for Passover’,
Jewish Telegraph Agency, 3 April 2006.
Gruber, Ruth Ellen. Jewish Heritage Travel: A guide to Eastern Europe. New York: National Geographic, 2007
Gruber, Samuel D. ‘US Commission urges Sarajevo cemetery restoration,’ Jewish Heritage Report II, 3-4, 1998-9:
www.isjm.org/Links/Sarajevo.htm
Hecht, Esther.
Hadassah Magazine, October 2007 (accessed January 2008)
Herscher, Andrew. ‘Remembering and rebuilding in Bosnia’, Transitions: Changes in Post-Communist Societies, 5:3, March 1998, 76-81.
Jews in Yugoslavia (exhibition catalogue), Zagreb: Muzejski Prostor, 1989.
Krinsky, Carol Herselle. Synagogues of Europe. Boston: The Architectural History Foundation and the MIT Press, 1985.
Mooney, Bel. ‘Saviours scorned’, The Times, London, 30 November 1996.
Serotta, Edward. Survival in Sarajevo: How a Jewish community came to the aid of its city, Vienna: Brandstätter, 1994.
Tomasevic, Nebojsa. Treasures of Yugoslavia: An encyclopedic touring guide. Belgrade: Yugoslaviapublic, 1980.
Werber, Eugen. The Sarajevo Haggadah. Sarajevo: Proveta-Svjetlost, 1983.
(Updated November 2007)
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