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JEWISH HERITAGE EUROPE

An Online Resource Centre

CROATIA HOME PAGE


Jews in Croatia
Jewish Cultural Heritage Sites in Croatia
Zagreb Bjelovar Cakovec Danica Daruvar
Djakovo Dubrovnik Jasenovac Koprivnica Krizevci
Ludbreg Osijek Rab Rijeka Senj
Sisak Split Varazdin Virovitica Other Sites
Contacts
Sources

Jews in Croatia
Croatia can be divided into two contrasting areas: the Dalmatian coast, where Jewish settlement was dense, goes back to ancient times and Ottoman and Italian influences are strong; and the inland regions, where Jewish settlement was more scattered, more recent and, since the sixteenth century, dominated by Austro-Hungarian influences.

The territory as a whole became part of Yugoslavia following the First World War; by 1939 it had a Jewish population of around 25,000. The inland part of the country became an independent Nazi puppet state ruled by the Fascist Ustase [Ustaše] in 1941, with terrible consequences for the Jews and other minority groups; however Italian Fascists occupied the coast, and there anti-Semitic forces were weaker. Most of the 5,000 Croatian Jews to survive the war lived here, or fought for the partisans inland.

After Croatia's secession from Yugoslavia in 1991, the Jewish community, which now numbered about 2,000, became a pawn in the new government's attempts to counter accusations of extreme nationalism. Aid was provided to Jewish-related projects; there was a rebirth of communal life and identity. The first rabbi in Zagreb since the Holocaust was appointed in 1998.

Jewish Cultural Heritage Sites in Croatia

Zagreb
Former synagogue (destroyed)
The site of Zagreb's main synagogue, destroyed at the end of 1941 on the orders of Ustase Mayor Ivan Werner, is now a car park. Built in 1867, the synagogue was designed by the architect Franjo Klein (1828-89), influenced by Ludwig von Forster's Tempelgasse synagogue in Vienna. It was an ambitious building, with a tripartite façade employing a free adaptation of an eastern-inflected Romanesque style.

The Zagreb Jewish community regained ownership of the empty plot in 1999. In 2006, after several years of public debate, the decision was taken to rebuild the synagogue, though as the time of writing (august 2009) work has not begun.

A memorial plaque on the wall of an adjoining building commemorates the former synagogue. For images, as well as a discussion of the building and its significance, see:
Yad Vashem website
Address
Praska Ulica 7

Mirogoj cemetery
The Mirogoj cemetery, Zagreb’s all-faith municipal burial ground, is located on the north side of the city. It was established in 1876 and designed by Hermann Bolle (d.1926) to function as a park and open-air art gallery as well as a place of burial. The tombs are surrounded by arcades, domes, greenery and sculpture. It is a popular tourist site.

Mirogoj replaced several smaller, older cemeteries. The Jewish section was established in 1878, when some monuments (and presumably burials) from two older Jewish cemeteries were moved to the new one.

In recent years a number of the Jewish graves have been replaced with those of other people, not necessarily Jews, because under local law, graves that are not maintained for a certain period of time may be sold as burial plots to others. This has particular affected the tombs of Jews whose families perished in the Holocaust or who have emigrated. In some cases the old tombstones have been replaced; in others a new name has simply been added to the old memorial. A terrorist bomb exploded in the Jewish part of the cemetery in 1991 but the damage was quickly repaired.

An imposing statue of Moses by the sculptor Antun Augustincic [Augustinčić] (1900-79), originally placed on the Gluck family monument in 1932, now serves as the cemetery’s Holocaust memorial. Augustincic is known for his sculpture Peace, which stands outside the United Nations building in New York.

Address
Mirogojska Cesta

Jewish community centre and Lavoslav Sik library
The Jewish community headquarters was constructed in 1857. It contains offices, a synagogue, a kindergarten, an art gallery, a function room, a Holocaust research and documentation centre, and the Lavoslav Sik library, the largest Jewish library in the Balkans.

The library has a large collection of newspapers and periodicals, as well as some 6,000 documents. There are many books printed by Jewish printing houses in central and eastern Europe and in Italy. The collection is dominated by 19th century material, although its oldest books date from the 16th century. Among these is an edition of the Shulchan Aruch, the code of Jewish law, written by Joseph Caro and printed in Venice. The building was badly damaged by a terrorist bomb in August 1991. The Croatian government funded repairs and the building was formally reopened in September 1992.

Address
Telephone
Fax
Email
Website
Palmoticeva 16
+385 1 492 2692
+385 1 492 2694
jcz@zg.t-com.hr
www.zoz.hr

Site of former Maccabee sports club
A plaque marks the building that once housed this, the Jewish sports club of Zagreb.
Address
Palmoticeva 22

Holocaust memorial
This 12-foot-high abstract sculpture was designed by Dusan Dzamonja (b. 1928) and erected in 1962. It is dedicated to the victims of the mass executions of 1942.

Location
uncertain

Bjelovar
Belovár
Synagogue
The synagogue of 1912-4 was designed in a stripped-back Secessionist style by Otto Goldscheider. It is now a cultural centre, the Dom Kulture Bjelovar. See photo_1 and photo_2

Address
Ivana Mazuranica 6

Jewish cemetery
There are about 200 tombstones and an Ohel in the Jewish section of the well-maintained municipal cemetery, established in 1876. Inscriptions are in various combinations of Hebrew, German, Hungarian, Croatian and other languages.

Cakovec [Čakovec]
Jewish cemetery
Cakovec’s Jewish cemetery was in use from 1794 to 1927. Some of its gravestones can be seen in the Jewish section of the municipal cemetery, established in 1897 and still in use. Here, the gates are decorated with the menorah motif; the foundations of an Ohel of 1891, destroyed in 1991, are visible opposite the main entrance. There is also a Holocaust monument and three family mausolea, constructed in the late 19th/early 20th centuries. Inscriptions throughout are in Hungarian, German, Hebrew and Croatian. The cemetery is looked after by the Cakovec Jewish community and the local authorities.

Danica
Concentration camp and monument
The first Ustase concentration camp was established in this town near Koprivnica in April 1941. About 600 Jews were interned there. In July of that year they were transferred to other camps; most were killed. A Holocaust monument shaped like a giant gallows was erected here in 1981.

Daruvar
Former Synagogue
The synagogue was part of a complex that included the rabbi’s house and a Talmud Torah (Jewish primary school). It was built in 1860 and remained in use until 1941. The building was taken over by the state in 1948 and converted into a theatre in 1951, entailing extensive rebuilding. It is now a Pentecostal church. All Jewish symbols have been removed from the building.

Jewish cemetery
Established in 1860, this small Jewish cemetery contains about 200 gravestones and a Holocaust memorial. It is maintained by the Jewish community. Restored in the 1990s, the cemetery is still in use.

Address
Vinogradska St

Djakovo [Đakovo]
Jewish cemetery and Holocaust memorial
Built in 1879, the Jewish cemetery contains about 700 tombs, and a Holocaust memorial to those who died at Djakovo concentration camp. This transit camp was in a nearby mill; 570 people died there. The remaining 2,450 were taken to Jasenovac, where they were killed in 1942. Within the neo-Romanesque Ohel a second memorial is dedicated to women and children. The bodies of those murdered are next door in the municipal cemetery, where they were buried in 1942 in individual graves; each has a metal marker.

Address
Ulica Vatroslava Doneganija

Dubrovnik
Ragusa
For background on Jewish Dubrovnik, see:
http://80.244.168.89/Communities/Archive/Dubrovnik.asp
http://dubrovnik-jews.blog.hr/

Ghetto
A Jewish ghetto was set up in Dubrovnik during the 16th century, when the city was under Venetian rule. Comprising eleven houses and a synagogue, and gated at each end, the ghetto occupied a steep, narrow alley just off the Stradun, the wide promenade that forms the heart of the Old Town. The houses were connected with the synagogue and each other by interior passageways, making it possible to move throughout the ghetto without setting foot outdoors. The street remains a characterful part of the city, and is the location of the Old synagogue.

Location
Zudioska Ulica

Old synagogue
This remarkable building and its treasures embody centuries of Jewish history in the Balkans. The story begins with the conversion of a 13th-century two-storey stone house into a Jewish place of worship; this may have taken place in the mediaeval period, for Dubrovnik is recorded as having a synagogue in 1408. Later, valuable 13th- and 14th-century Torah scrolls were brought here by refugees from the Iberian expulsion. The present sanctuary was redesigned in the baroque style in the mid-17th century. The synagogue survived both a major earthquake in 1667 and the Second World War. During the war, its treasures – which include objects of silver, precious textiles and a famous set of Torah scrolls – were smuggled to safety using the internal passages that linked the synagogue to neighbouring houses.

When Dubrovnik was attacked in 1991 and 1992, two shells hit the roof of the synagogue, causing serious damage. Restoration began in 1996, overseen by the non-profit Dubrovnik Rebuilding Fund and spearheaded by a donation from a non-Jewish American couple.

For much of the 1990s, the Dubrovnik Jewish community was engaged in a legal battle over more than 50 of the synagogue’s treasures. These ritual objects were in 1993 sent to the USA for an exhibition at Yeshiva University Museum. It was then argued that the objects would not be safe in Dubrovnik, given the continuing conflict in the Balkans. Backed by the Croatian government, the Dubrovnik Jewish community took the case to court in Zagreb and New York and the objects were eventually returned in late 1998.

The synagogue’s collection of ritual objects are now kept in secure exhibition rooms beneath the building, which functions as a museum when it is not in use for worship. The synagogue was re-dedicated on Rosh Hashanah 2007. It is one of the oldest functioning synagogues in Europe.

Further detail on the building can be found in Krinsky 1985, pp. 167-169 and Dorfman 2000, pp. 65-72. See also:
http://www.jhom.com/bookshelf/synagogues/dubrovnik.htm and
http://www.isjm.org/jhr/nos3-4/dubrov.htm

Address
Zudioska Ulica 3

Boninovo Jewish cemetery
Dubrovnik’s original Jewish cemetery was established in 1652 in the Ploce district, outside the northern ramparts of the old city. The community sold this at the end of the 19th century and in 1911 exhumed the remains for reburial at a new site in the Boninovo district. Only 30 of the original tombstones remain. Many were used in construction of the northern side of the city walls, either following the earthquake of 1667 or during the First World War.

The present cemetery contains about 200 gravestones, is well-maintained and surrounded by a high wall with a gate. There are several different types of grave marker, and epitaphs in Hebrew, Ladino and Croatian. There is also a small Ohel.

Location
Put Od Republike, north of the Splitski Put junction

Jasenovac
Concentration camps and memorials
From the summer of 1941 until April 1945, tens of thousands of people (some authorities estimate up to a million) were tortured and killed at Jasenovac, a concentration and death camp complex run by the Ustase. The site comprised five subcamps and three smaller camps spread out over 240 square kilometres on the bank of the Sava River, about 100 kilometres south of Zagreb. One of these lesser camps, Donja Gradina, is now in Bosnia.

Jasenovac is sometimes referred to as the 'Auschwitz of the Balkans', and as such it has become a symbol of the atrocities of the era. The exact number of victims is unknown – no systematic records were kept, and much documentation was destroyed at the end of the war. The great majority of those killed were Serbs, but victims also included Jews, Gypsies and anti-fascist Croats. Few physical signs of the camp’s existence remain, but a Holocaust memorial and museum were constructed on the site in the 1960s and the area designated a memorial park. The sites of former buildings were marked by hollows in the ground; of mass graves, by low mounds. Memorial plaques were also erected during this period on the sites of sub-camps, villages where massacres took place, etc.

The camp’s history was used to fuel ethnic hatred and justify Serb attacks on Croats in the 1990s; the museum itself was badly damaged in the war, amid events which have been claimed as the deliberate work of Rightist Croatians.

Holocaust memorial
This enormous monument, shaped like a 'flower of life' and designed by the Belgrade sculptor Bogdan Bogdanovic (b. 1922), was erected on the site as a national shrine in 1965-6.

Jasenovac memorial park, museum and education centre
A museum, with collections that include many surviving documents and other relics of the camp, was established in 1968. It was dismantled in 1991 and its collections removed for safekeeping. In 2000 an important part of this material was sent to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC, USA, where it was catalogued and conserved before being returned.

In November 2006, a new memorial museum and education centre opened within the memorial park. A central feature is a list of known victims of the camp, containing the names of some 69,842 people – 39,580 Serbs, 14,599 Roma, 10,700 Jews, 3,462 Croats and victims of other nationalities – who perished in Jasenovac and the nearby camp at Stara Gradiska. Part of the historic fort which housed the latter camp is still standing.

Address


Telephone/Fax
Website
Jasenovac Memorial Area
Brace Radic 147
44324 Jasenovac
+385 44 672 319
www.jusp-jasenovac.hr

Memorial plaques
A memorial by Ninoslav Jankovic [Jankovic] marks the site of the former Krapje camp. In Mlaka, two mass graves were marked in 1969; another memorial was erected in the city centre. There are also memorials at Ustica, one of which is in the Roma cemetery, and Stara Gradiska. At Jasenovac itself, further memorials stand in the Tannery building and the village centre.


Koprivnica
Synagogue
There has been a Jewish community in the city since about 1850, and a synagogue was built outside the centre in 1875-6. It was designed by the Viennese architect Julius Deutsch, who also worked on the synagogue at Krizevci and other projects for the Jewish community. It was renovated in 1937 by Slavko Loewy. It has a tripartite facade with a tall mid-section in the style of Vienna’s Tempelgasse synagogue. The building was used as a prison during the Second World War and afterwards as a warehouse and industrial building. In 1999 there were plans to convert it into a concert hall as part of the nearby music school. A memorial plaque for Holocaust victims was put up in 1996. See photo.

Address
Svilarska St

Jewish cemetery
The cemetery, established in 1842, contains several monuments: an Ohel, the main façade of which became a Holocaust memorial after relatively recent reconstruction; an earlier Holocaust memorial of 1975; and a war memorial to Jewish soldiers who died in the First World War. There are about 250 tombs, including five family mausolea. The oldest tombstones have Hebrew inscriptions, and the later ones are in German, Croatian and Hungarian. Many were damaged by gunfire in the 1990s. The whole cemetery is surrounded by a wall and is maintained by the tiny Jewish community, which was reestablished at the end of the 1990s.

Krizevci [Križevci]
Former synagogue
The synagogue was built in 1895 by Bernard Honigsberg and Julius Deutsch. In its original form, it had a tripartite façade with a raised, semi-circular central section topped by a Decalogue and rose window. Neo-Renaissance decorative elements included arched windows, corner finials with the Star of David, and a balustraded parapet. It was abandoned in 1941 and the building taken over by the state in 1949. In 1956 it was converted into a youth centre. All decorative elements were removed. Today the synagogue is occupied by various arts and community organisations, but there are plans to convert it for use by the Croatian State Archives. See photo.

Address
J J Strossmayera Square, 5

Jewish cemeteries
There are two Jewish cemeteries. The old cemetery was established in 1840 and taken over by the state in 1958; it contains about 70 tombs. The new cemetery is a walled section of the main municipal cemetery, established in 1899. It contains about 100 monuments, with inscriptions in German, Hebrew and Croatian. There is a memorial to Jews from Krizevci who served and died in the First World War. There are monumental arcades with tombs of prominent members of the Jewish community, and a row of five family mausolea containing burials dating from 1920-38.

Krizevci city museum
The Museum has two Torahs from the Krizevci synagogue. One dates from 1907 and was a gift of the Fišer family.

Address

Email
Website
Sermageova 2
48260 Krizevci
gmk@net4u.hr
www.krizevci.net

Ludbreg
Former synagogue
The synagogue, built in 1895, was abandoned in 1941, sold in 1948 and transformed into a residential building.

Jewish cemetery
The Jewish section of the municipal cemetery, established in 1890, contains 29 monuments and one family mausoleum. A number have the date of birth marked with a Star of David but the date of death with a cross, and it appears that these are better maintained than those that bear no Christian symbolism. A similar pattern has been noted at Krapina. The names on the tombs are all Ashkenazi, with epitaphs in German, Hebrew and Croatian.

Osijek
Mursa
Osijek stands on the Drava river, near the Serbian border. Divided into lower and upper towns, it is the biggest city in the eastern region of Croatia known as Slavonia. Jews lived here in antiquity; there may have been a synagogue in the 3rd century. In the late 19th century, Jews formed nearly nine per cent of the entire population, the largest such community in the country.

Jewish community centre
The Jewish community today has about 100 members. The community headquarters building is in a former Jewish school.

Address
Radiceva 13

Former main synagogue (destroyed)
This synagogue was designed by Theodor Stern and built in 1869. It stood on the main commercial street of the upper town, opposite the county hall. It was a massive building, richly decorated, with lotus-shaped domes which made it the tallest building in the town. It was damaged by fire in 1941 and its ruins were torn down in 1948-50. A residential building now stands on its site.

Small synagogue
A small freestanding synagogue, the design of which combines neo-Romanesque and neo-Moorish elements, was built in Osijek’s lower town in 1903. The architect was W.C. Hofbauer. It had a slightly projecting central façade flanked by two towers and topped by onion domes. Sold by the Jewish community, it is now a Pentecostal church, but remains in good condition. The tablets of the Ten Commandments can still be seen – below a cross – at the peak of the main façade. The Ark, also crowned by a Decalogue, is still in place, as are the Stars of David in the circular windows of the former women’s gallery.

For more, see Dorfman 2000, pp. 73-79. See image.

Address
Cvjetkova Street 30

Jewish cemetery – upper town
Established in 1850, the Jewish cemetery in the upper town is still in use. It has a neo-Romanesque Ohel. Its 500-600 tombs are reminders of the prosperity of Osijek’s pre-war community. Epitaphs are in Hebrew, German, Hungarian and Croatian.

Address
Cepinska Ulica 11-13

Jewish cemetery – lower town
This Jewish cemetery, established in 1860, has 70-100 gravestones, bearing inscriptions in Hebrew, German and Hungarian. It is rather overgrown. The small Ohel was slightly damaged in the 1990s war but has been repaired.

Holocaust memorial
A striking Holocaust memorial stands in a park near the community centre. The sculpture, Mother and Child, is by the Jewish sculptor Oscar Nemon (1906-85), who was born in Osijek. Nemon was influenced by Ivan Mestrovic, who supported him in his work. He moved to Vienna and then fled to England in 1938, where he became well-known for his portraits of Winston Churchill and other luminaries. His studio outside Oxford (UK) is occasionally open to the public. For more, see:
www.oscarnemon.org.uk/

Rab
Concentration camp and memorial
Some 3,500 Jews were interned by the Italians on Rab Island. In 1953, a memorial complex was created on the site, with a cemetery for the remains of its inmates, designed by Edvard Ravnikar. A plaque erected in 1993 honours the 'Jewish Partisan Battalion' formed by internees after Italy capitulated to the Allies in September 1943. For more, see:
www.oris.hr/oris_br_27/tekst_02.htm

Rijeka
Fiume
Former synagogue (destroyed)
The ornate, domed synagogue of 1902-3, designed by the Hungarian architect Lipot [Lipót] Baumhorn (1860-1932), was destroyed in 1944.

Orthodox synagogue
Built in 1928, this modest Orthodox synagogue is, with those of Dubrovnik and Split, one of only three synagogues in Croatia not to have been damaged, destroyed, or converted for another use during or after the Second World War. It is used by a 70-strong community. Designed by G Angyal and P Fabbro in a Modernist style, it has an asymmetrical three-part façade, featuring a brick tower and two entrances of different heights. Inside, there is a vestibule and a sanctuary divided into three sections. There is little decoration. The synagogue contains a beautiful ark made of Carrara marble, brought from Ancona, Italy. A comprehensive programme of conservation began in 2005.

See Musafia 1998 and
www.rijeka.hr/Default.aspx?art=3291&sec=456

Address
9 Ivan Filipovic Street

Jewish cemeteries
The old Jewish cemetery, founded in or before 1840, stood outside the city walls and was in use until 1874. It was then replaced by the Jewish section of the new municipal cemetery. This contains an Ohel and about 550 monuments. Around twenty tombstones from the old cemetery have been incorporated into a commemorative wall. There is also a Holocaust memorial, erected in 1981. Designed in white Istrian stone by architect Zdenko Sila, it bears the names of the 278 Holocaust victims from Rijeka.

Location
Kozala

Senj
Senia
This is one of the oldest towns on the northern Adriatic coast, located at the intersection of two major trade routes. A third-century tombstone of a Jew, Aurelius Dionisius, was found here, but there is no indication of permanent Jewish settlement. It bears a Greek inscription and is in the city museum.

Address


Telephone/Fax
Email
Website
Senj city museum
Milana Ogrizovica 5
53270 Senj
+385 53 881 141
gradski.muzej.senj@gs.htnet.hr
www.senj.hr/muzej.html

Sisak
Former synagogue
The former synagogue, built around 1880, stands on the main square. It was sold in 1949 and has served as a music school since the late 1990s.

Jewish cemetery
The cemetery was established in the early 19th century. It suffered heavily from Allied bombing during the Second World War and remains were exhumed from it in 1960. About 150 tombstones were still standing in the early 1990s, but as a result of the conflicts of those years it seems that only a few broken stones remain.

Split
Split developed within the great palace of the third-century Roman emperor Diocletian, which was located not far from the Roman town of Salona, Diocletian’s birthplace. Salona was destroyed by Avar invaders in the early seventh century, and the Jews of Salona are presumed to have sought refuge in the neighbouring palace, forming a focus for settlement that survives to this day. For more, see:
www.lifejacketadventures.com/stories/pdfs/Split_Jews.pdf

Jewish quarter/ghetto
The old Jewish quarter occupies the northwestern part of the former palace and is still known as the ghetto. Archeologists have also found inscribed menorot on the limestone blocks of the basement walls of the southwest part of the former palace.

Synagogue and community centre
Although it has been rebuilt and renovated many times, the synagogue is believed to date from around 1500. It was created within a residential building in the northwestern corner of the former palace. In 1942 Italian fascists ravaged the tiny sanctuary, throwing most of the ritual objects, archives, Torah scrolls, and books onto a bonfire in the main town square. The synagogue was restored after the Second World War and again renovated and reopened in 1996. It now shares a building with the Jewish community headquarters. The sanctuary is in a rectangular room with arched windows. The stone Ark is flanked by columns set under a decorative arch.

Address
Zidovki Prilaz 1

Old Jewish cemetery
The large Jewish cemetery is located above the town, on the eastern slope of Mount Marjan. The cemetery was acquired in 1573, but the oldest remaining tombstone is from 1717. It remained in use until the Second World War. The rectangular plot includes some 700 tombstones from the 18th to 20th centuries. The tombstones are of the horizontal Sephardi type; some are shaped like a sarcophagus roof, and the others are flat, slightly inclined slabs. The tombstones have inscriptions in Hebrew, with additional epitaphs in Italian or Croation on the newer monuments. The cemetery is surrounded by a gated wall. The entrance is beside a house that once functioned as a mikveh, and is now a café. The site is not well maintained.

New Jewish cemetery
The new Jewish cemetery is a section of the Lovrinac municipal cemetery, where there is also a Holocaust memorial.

Ancient Salona archaeological site
Salona (now a suburb of Split called Solin) was the capital of the Roman province of Dalmatia and one of the most important commercial seaports on the Adriatic. Archaeological finds dating to the second and third centuries CE suggest a well-established Jewish community. Traces of a third-century Jewish cemetery were excavated, and finds included several objects decorated with menorahs, including a pendant, ceramic oil lamps, a fragment of a sarcophagus and the tombstone of a Syrian Jew named Malhos. These are now in Split archaeological museum.

Locations:
The site of Salona is now an archaeological park in Solin.

Split Archaeological Museum is at Zrinsko-Frankopanska 25.

The Museum of Croation Archaeological Monuments, Croatia’s national archaeological museum, is on Stjepana Gunjace.

Varazdin [Varaždin]
Former synagogue
This synagogue of 1861 had an elaborate neo-Moorish façade, featuring a central section with an arched top, a small rose window, and side towers topped by onion domes. The building was damaged in 1941 and rebuilt in 1946. In 1969 it was turned into a cinema: the rear with its high, arched windows remains intact on the outside, but the front part was replaced with a Communist-style entranceway. The building is no longer a cinema.

Location
Frankopanska Street

Jewish cemetery
This large Jewish cemetery, dating from 1806, contains 500-700 graves. Located just outside the town, it is in relatively good condition, though it has been subject to some vandalism. A significant number of the monuments are older, stele-shaped slabs, with Hebrew and German inscriptions. The newer monuments are in the style of the Christian monuments of the same era, and richly decorated. On these, many inscriptions are in Croatian or sometimes Hungarian. The Ohel was built in 1900.

Location
On the road to Koprivnica

Virovitica
Jewish cemetery
The Jewish cemetery of 1870 lies outside the town. It contains 181 monuments, with epitaphs in German, Hungarian, Hebrew and Croatian. There is an Ohel, which is in poor condition. The cemetery also contains monuments relocated from the old cemetery in the neighboring village of Antunovac, which was active from 1830-70. At the entrance is an imposing stone block with an inscription in German and Hebrew, urging that the tombs be taken care of. Many have been broken or knocked down, and others are missing; some graves have been opened. Pickaxe and hammer marks can be seen on many monuments, and the frequent scars of bullets are a reminder of the heavy fighting that took place in the area during the 1991-2 war. An elderly couple live in the ohel and care for the cemetery; a significant part of the site is also used by them for agricultural purposes. The cemetery was recently cleared of vegetation and all monuments are now accessible.

Address
Ulica Ericha Shlomovica 1

Other Sites
The following list gives summary information on lesser Jewish cemeteries and several destroyed synagogues:

Djurdjevac (1860, two gravestones in poor condition, site is now a Roma village).
Gola (Next to Christian cemetery, ten gravestones in poor condition).
Karlovac (Synagogue: 1870-1, became a warehouse during the Second World War, demolished c1960; cemetery: early 19th century, about 200 tombs, fine late-19th century Ohel).
Krapina (1890, part of municipal cemetery, 30 gravestones, foundations of Ohel).
Kutina (Part of municipal cemetery, 70-80 graves, poor condition).
Legrad (Cemetery outside the village, almost inaccessible).
Lipik (Part of municipal cemetery, some 30-40 graves; poor condition).
Nasice (Synagogue: 1898, massive, destroyed 1942; cemetery: 1865, 60-70 gravestones, overgrown).
Nova Gradiska/Cernik (Nova Gradiska cemetery may survive, said to contain 50-70 monuments; locals also used Jewish cemetery at Cernik, eighteenth-century origin, ruined Ohel, effectively inaccessible).
Opatija (Cemetery 1908, about 75 monuments, Holocaust memorial).
Pakrac (Cemetery 1875).
Pleternica (19th century, about a dozen monuments).
Podravske Sesvete (19th century).
Slavonska Pozega (1900, about 600 monuments, poor condition).
Slavonski Brod (Synagogue: site at Kresimirova Street 8, 1896, by Leo Honigsberg and Julius Deutsch, damaged in Second World War and subsequently demolished; cemetery: 1880, about 100 gravestones, Holocaust memorial and original Ohel).
Suhopolje (About 10-15 monuments, inside the Catholic cemetery).
Vinkovci (1870, part of municipal cemetery, foundations of Ohel, poor condition).
Vrbovec (Before 1914, about 50 monuments, poor condition).
Vukovar (Synagogue: site at Lj. Gaja 13, 1889 by Ludwig Schone, first domed synagogue in Croatia. Damaged in Second World War, demolished 1958; Jewish community has campaigned for it to be rebuilt as a centre for multi-ethnic peace. Cemetery: 1850, 75-100 monuments, imposing Ohel heavily damaged).
Zala (Cemetery, six monuments, next to Christian cemetery).


Contacts:

JEWISH COMMUNITY OF ZAGREB
Address
Telephone
Fax
Email
Website
Palmoticeva 16
+385 1 492 2692
+385 1 492 2694
jcz@zg.t-com.hr
www.zoz.hr

BET ISRAEL
Address
Telephone
Fax
Website
Radiceva 26
+385 1 485 1008
+385 1 485 1376
www.bet-israel.com


Sources
Note: This page relies heavily on information in a report supported by the United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad: Gruber and Ceresnes, 2005. Ivan Ceresnes [Čerešnješ] is the former president of the Jewish Community of Sarajevo.

Ceresnjes, Ivan [Čerešnješ, Ivan]. Caught in the Winds of War: Jews in the former Yugoslavia, Jerusalem: World Jewish Congress, 1999.

Dorfman, Rivka and Ben-Zion. Synagogues Without Jews, Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2000.

Efron, Zusja and Keckemet, Dusko. Zidovsko Groblje u Splitu, 1573-1973, Split: Jewish Community of Split, 1973.

Funke, Phyllis Ellen.'The Jewish Traveler: Croatia':
Hadassah, 82 (5), January 2001 (accessed August 2009).

Goldstein, Ivo. Croatia: A History. London: Hurst and Company, 1999.

Gruber, Ruth Ellen. 'East-Central Europe' in Singer, David and Grossman, Lawrence, eds., American Jewish Yearbook, 104, New York: American Jewish Committee, 2004, pp. 408-448.

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OTHER LINKS:
Bjelovar synagogue
(accessed August 2009)

Dubrovnik Jewish community
(accessed August 2009)

Dubrovnik Old synagogue, account in Dorfman 2000 (summary)
(accessed August 2009)

Jasenovac memorial
(accessed August 2009)

Jasenovac memorial project
(accessed August 2009)

Jasenovac on-line exhibition
(accessed August 2009)

Jasenovac, removal of the museum
(accessed August 2009)

Jasenovac Research Institute
(accessed August 2009)

Koprivnica, former synagogue
(accessed August 2009)

Krizevci, former synagogue
(accessed August 2009)

Krizevci, municipal museum
(accessed August 2009)

Nemon, Oscar
(accessed August 2009)

Rijeka Orthodox synagogue
(accessed August 2009)

Zagreb synagogue
(accessed August 2009)

Zagreb Jewish community centre and Lavoslav Sik library
(accessed August 2009)


(Updated August 2009)

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