User:Peacemaker67/The Holocaust in Yugoslavia

The Holocaust in Yugoslavia was the mass murder or genocide of the Jewish population of the territory of the Axis-occupied Kingdom of Yugoslavia during World War II. Approximately 67,250 Yugoslav Jews, and 3,000 Jewish refugees from other parts of Europe were killed by the Axis Powers and their local collaborators, accounting for about 81.7 per cent of the pre-war Jewish population. The perpetrators included German police and Wehrmacht troops, the Ustaše Militia in the Independent State of Croatia, the Hungarian and Bulgarian armies and various Serbian collaborationist forces.

Background

In 1941, about 82,242 Jews lived in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. A little over one third were Sephardic Jews living mainly in Bosnia, Herzegovina, Macedonia and the Yugoslav capital Belgrade. The remainder were Ashkenazic and a small number of Orthodox Jews living mainly in Vojvodina and the former Austro-Hungarian territory of the Croatia-Slavonia. Very few Jews lived the Slovene Lands, except for the Prekmurje region. The majority lived in cities and towns and were employed in the trades, mercantile business and the liberal professions. There were 115 religious communities in the country, and Jews were fully integrated into national life.

References

• Tomasevich, Jozo (2001). War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941–1945: Occupation and Collaboration. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-3615-2.