UDC 930.85(4–12) ISSN 0350–7653 SERBIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AND ARTS INSTITUTE FOR BALKAN STUDIES

BALCANICA XLII ANNUAL OF THE INSTITUTE FOR BALKAN STUDIES

Editor DUŠAN T. BATAKOVIĆ

Editorial Board FRANCIS CONTE (Paris), DJORDJE S. KOSTIĆ, LJUBOMIR MAKSIMOVIĆ, DANICA POPOVIĆ, GABRIELLA SCHUBERT (Jena), BILJANA SIKIMIĆ, ANTHONY-EMIL TACHIAOS (Thessaloniki), NIKOLA TASIĆ (Director of the Institute for Balkan Studies), SVETLANA M. TOLSTAJA (Moscow)

BELGRADE 2011 222 Balcanica XLII

Philip J. Cohen, ’s Secret War: Propaganda and the Deceit of History. Texas A & M University Press, 1996, pp. 264. Reviewed by Miroslav Svirčević*

The wars in the former Yugoslavia (1991– Even a cursory reading of Cohen’s 99) have inspired a considerable body of book, which heavily draws on the Croatian scholarly and popular history writings pamphlet of Tomislav Vuković (alias Lju- in the West, which, sadly, also includes a bica Štefan) and Edo Bojović Pregled srp- number of pseudo-scholarly publications, skog antisemitizma (An overview of Ser- not infrequently swaying on the verge of bian anti-Semitism, 1992) reveals ugliest war and racist propaganda, while quite clearly that it is just another obscure setting themselves an ambitious and pre- piece of ideological denigration (such as, tentious goal: to provide a “scholarly” ex- for example, Croat-American sociologist planation and unravel the real causes of Branimir Anzulovic’s Heavenly Serbia: the bloody disintegration of the common From Myth to Genocide, 1999, or Noel state of the South Slavs. As if following Malcolm’s Kosovo: A Short History, 1998) a well-trodden path, all these “scholarly” inspired by just as clear political objec- interpretations of the causes of the gory tives. In fact, the Cohen’s book teems with Yugoslav drama may be reduced to three forgeries, half-truths, incompetent use of propagandistic stereotypes: (1) cultural historical sources, overstrained theses and inferiority of the Serbian nation to the ill-intended inferences. It is so inconsist- civilized nations, particularly manifest in ent that it does not even take a careful its tendency to nurture various historical reader to notice its many contradictions myths; (2) its centuries-long aspiration and as many distortions of historical fact to dominate the neighbouring nations, in virtually all chapters. If we add that notably Croat, Bosniak, Albanian and Cohen, advertently or inadvertently, fails Montenegrin; and (3) its almost natural to mention and analyze some major his- predisposition to all forms of totalitarian torical phenomena, i.e. completely over- systems and political ideologies, notably looks the broader European context, its Fascism and anti-Semitism. real purpose does not seem too difficult One of such publications, Serbia’s to figure out. And its real purpose isto Secret War: Propaganda and the Deceit of criminalize the modern history of Serbia, History, was written by a medical doc- on the one hand, and to relativize the hor- tor, Philip J. Cohen, and published in rible crimes of the Independent State of 1996 with the academic backing of the (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska or series editor, a Croat-American scholar NDH) against the , Jews and Roma, Stjepan G. Meštrović, and the author which took lives of hundreds of thousands of the Foreword, a Harvard professor, of victims, on the other. In other words, David Riesman, now deceased. Liken- ing the book’s author to Erich Fromm, Meštrović announced it as a refreshing * Institute for Balkan Studies, Belgrade contribution to contemporary world his-  toriography, and for its scholarly refuta- There is an extensive and scholarly reliable literature on the genocide perpetrated by tion of the clichéd views of, and “Serbian the Croatian Ustashas against Serbs, Jews propaganda myths” about, Serbia and the and Roma. Among serious Croatian his- Serbian nation’s antifascist role in the torians, the most important contributions Second World War. were written by V. Novak, Magnum Crimen. Reviews 223

Cohen’s book has been published with the and their tragic fate in occupied Serbia in intention to present the modern history the light of what he sees as the historical of Serbia as the history of crime, to equate continuity of aggressive Serbian nation- the Serbian national idea with Hitler’s alism and anti-Semitism threatening not racist theory of Arian superiority (in this only its neighbours but also world peace. case, of the Serbian nation to other na- Cohen’s book creates the impression tions), to marginalize and even obliterate that during the Second World War the the Serbian contribution to antifascism, Serbs were Hitler’s allies and Jewish foes, and to present Serbia, with her purported whereas the (and Bosnian Mus- pro-Nazi and pro-Fascist predilections, lims) sided with the Allies and protected as the source of all evil in the Balkans. Jews against pogrom. Cohen argues that Moreover, the book offers a symmetrical the Serbs have been successful in conceal- portrayal of the clerico-fascist Independ- ing the facts about their real role in the ent State of Croatia and occupied “Nedić’s Second World War, presenting them- Serbia”, ascribing to the collaborationist selves as its main victim, as the only par- Serbian government, compared to other ticipant in the anti-Hitler struggle and Balkan and even European countries, a the only friend of Jews in the Balkans. little short of the leading role in carrying Through skilful manipulation and propa- out the Holocaust. Cohen goes even fur- ganda, Cohen claims, the Serbs have suc- ther and presents the annihilation of Jews ceeded in imposing their own perception of the Second World War to others, and contemporary historiography has sadly Pola vijeka klerikalizma u Hrvatskoj (Zagreb succumbed to it en masse. Only recently, 1948); F. Jelić-Butić, Ustaše i NDH (Zagreb: with the discovery of “new” sources, and Liber-Školska knjiga, 1977); B. Krizman, with new readings of the available litera- Pavelić i Ustaše (Zagreb: Globus, 1978). For ture (mostly well-known products of Yu- a broader context with a chapter on Croatia, goslav Communist historiography, books see J. Steinberg, All or Nothing. The Axis and the Holocaust 1941–1945 (London and from Croatian and US historiographies, New York: Ruthledge, 1990); V. Dedijer, and the memoirs of some of Ljotić’s asso- The Yugoslav Auschwitz and the Vatican. The ciates) has the picture emerged of Serbia’s Croatian Massacre of the Serbs during World ideological and technical collaboration War II (Buffalo & New York: Prometheus with the Nazi occupation forces, radically Books, and Freiburg, Germany: Ahriman changing the earlier historical conclu- Verlag, 1992). For a detailed analysis, see sions as regards the Serbs. This is what Edmond Paris, Genocide in Satellite Croatia 1941–1945. A Record of Racial and Religious Cohen seeks to emphasize and this is why Persecutions and Massacres, transl. from the he chooses to title his book Serbia’s Secret French by Louis Perkins (Chicago: The In- War: Propaganda and the Deceit of History. stitute for Balkan Affaires, 1962).Cf.���������� an ove- The bottom line of Cohen’s book is rwiew in D. T. Bataković, “Le génocide dans that Serbia was not an ally of the anti- l’État indépendant croate (1941–1945)”, Hitler coalition during the Second World Hérodote 67 (Paris 1992), 70–80; Marco War, but a satellite of the Axis powers, Aurelio Rivelli, Un genocide occulte. Etat In- dependant de Croatie 1941–1945 (Lausanne: and the one with the highest level of L’Age d’Homme, 1999). ideological and technical collaborative in-  volvement in carrying out the genocidal Cf. M. Koljanin, “Holocaust Research in Yugoslavia”, in Israeli-Serbian Academic Ex- policy towards the Jews and all other change in Holocaust Research: Collection of non-Serb nations that did not fit into the papers from the academic conference, Jerusa- long-devised plan for creating “Greater lem–Yad Vashem 2006 (Belgrade 2008), 283. Serbia”. In support of his thesis, Cohen 224 Balcanica XLII dwells on occupied Serbia’s collaboration- There is no doubt even at this point ist government of General Milan Nedić, that we are dealing with a pile of delib- describing him as openly sympathetic to erate falsifications and that they should Nazi Germany even as the pre-war army not at all be seen as a harmless adventure and navy minister. General Nedić, Co- of an amateur historian. Cohen, obvi- hen argues, was Hitler’s most loyal ally ously aware himself that his fabrications in the Balkans, especially in consistently do not tally with historical fact, opens carrying out the Holocaust and anti- his book with a “theoretical explanation” Masonic policy. In order to achieve its for the Serbian collaboration during the criminal goal, the Nedić government set Second World War. He tries to prove up an entire system of “genocidal institu- that Serbia’s entire (ideological, politi- tions” and military units on the model of cal and technical) collaboration with the Nazi Germany, all under a single chain of Axis powers had deep roots and that command: Serbian State Guard, Serbian “Serbian fascism” and “anti-Semitism” Gendarmerie (taken over from the col- rely on a long tradition of Serbian ex- lapsed ), Belgrade pansionism and intolerance of the Jews City Special Police and Dimitrije Ljotić’s and all other nations opposing Greater Serbian Volunteer Corps. Furthermore, Serbian hegemony. the pro-Western royalist Chetniks of According to Cohen’s distorted Colonel Dragoljub Mihailović, the first Croatian-nationalist inspired interpreta- anti-Nazi guerrilla movement in occu- tion, it was in fact Serbs who invented pied Europe, are described by Cohen as fascism, long before Hitler. Its origin can an ally of the Axis powers. This, added to be traced as far back as the First Serbian his entire misrepresentation of Serbian Insurrection of 1804 and, forty years lat- modern as well as contemporary history, er, in Ilija Garašanin’s Načertanije (1844), is meant to substantiate his thesis that the we can see it take its clearly recogniz- participation of Serbs on the side of the able shape. This fascism was fertile soil Allies is just another myth, so typical of the Serbian frame of mind. Unlike the magnifiques pages d’heroisme qu’ont écrites Serbs, Cohen goes on to say, the Croats les tchetniks au prix de leur sang. Les Alliés pursued an altogether different policy. eux-mêmes ont reconnu que leur action en They allegedly were the only pro-Western retardant l’arrivé des renforts allemands a nation in Yugoslavia, politically oriented joué un rôle importante dans les succès de la towards West-European democracies. campagne d’Afrique. Les messages adressés This orientation of theirs was confirmed par les généraux Auchinleck, Eisenhower, by their purportedly massive participation etc., en témoignent. Le général Mihalovitch fut même, le 2 fevrier 1943, decoré de la in ’s communist Partisan Croix de Guerre avec palme par le général forces which bravely fought both against de Gaulle. Par la suite les tchetniks sauvé-  the Germans and Mihailović’s Chetniks. rent des centaines d’aviateurs alliés. Ils peu- vent enfin être considérés comme les libéra- teurs d’une grande partie de la Serbie.” (Le  After Stalin’s Red Army entered Serbia Monde, Paris, 12 June 1946) Quoted from and Yugoslavia in 1944, Mihalović, aban- D. T. Bataković, “Le nettoyage ethnique doned by the Allies, was caught by Tito’s sous la loupe de l’historien. Une lecture du communists and tried in a sham-trial in livre de M. Grmek, M. Gjidara, N. Simac, 1946. ���������������������������������Mihailović, however, was conside- ‘Le nettoyage ethnique. Documents histori- red a genuine anti-Nazi hero and praised ques sur une idéologie serbe’ (Paris: Fayard, as such in Washington, London and Paris: 1993, 340 p.)��”,� Raison garder 10–11 (Lau- “Tout cela ne peut tout de même effacer les sanne 1996), 11–25. Reviews 225 for anti-Semitism and, thus, the Serbs, controversially known as the Greek War throughout their modern history, sys- of Independence, began in 1821. tematically discriminated against Jews, Cohen’s fabrications about the through legislation, through ideological Načertanije are even more malignant. and religious propaganda and through From what this physician writes about political actions. This racist and reli- the first Serbian national programme, it gious intolerance culminated, Cohen seems justified to ask if he has ever read it argues, during the Second World War, all. He claims that Garašanin devised this in the consistent implementation by the Serbian fascist project, which amounts to collaborationist Nedić government of annexing to Serbia all the lands popu- measures conducive to the Holocaust. lated by “Bulgarians, Macedonians, Mon- To corroborate his assertions, Cohen tenegrins, Bosniaks, Hungarians and cites the Nazi concentration camp at Croats”, using the goriest of methods — Sajmište, near Belgrade (set up in the ruthless liquidation and expulsion. Two territory of the pro-Nazi Independent things need to be borne in mind here: State of Croatia and run by the Nazi (1) Fascism as a totalitarian social move- forces), and the anti-Masonic exhibition ment with distinctive ideological tenets is held in Belgrade, emphasizing Serbia’s not the product of the nineteenth but of alleged responsibility for these destruc- the twentieth century; its emergence was tive anti-civilisation measures. related to the severe economic crisis, the An unbiased reader, however, can see collapse of democratic constitutionalism instantly that Cohen’s interpretation is and the efforts to break up the system of based on clumsily and malevolently as- collective security established by the 1919 sembled falsifications, half-truths and Versailles Treaty, in the aftermath of the metaphysical assumptions. According First World War, which is why it arose in to him, the Serbs were the originators the revisionist countries frustrated with of Fascism, more than a century before the outcome of the war; consequently, the Hitler or Mussolini, and on top of it, Načertanije could not even theoretically during their insurrection against for- be the source of Fascism, let alone geno- eign rule in 1804. Does that mean that cide; (2) the Načertanije, an unpublicized the great German historian Leopold von foreign policy draft, drawn up jointly Ranke got it all wrong while writing his with Polish agents in the Balkans, actu- famous, and smoothly readable, history ally an abridged version of Polish policy of the First Serbian Insurrection? Hav- proposals, approved by Paris and London ing identified all processes, events and officials, was aimed to bring Serbia closer constants he thought of as being univer- to France and Great Britain as a future sally human, Ranke shaped an account Piedmont of the Balkan Slavs. Drafted in of Karageorge’s short-lived state and the age of national awakening ferment- called it a history of the Serbian revolu- ing across pre-revolutionary Europe, the tion, whereby he sought to emphasize its Načertanije was similar to other national importance not only for Serbian, but also programmes all over the Balkans, which for Balkan and European history. It be- gan as a local revolt and gradually grew into the struggle for national liberation  L. Ranke, Die Serbische Revolution (1829) = and for the restoration of independence, The History of Servia and the Servian Revolu- thus setting an example for other con- tion, with a Sketch of the Insurrection in Bos- quered Christians, notably the Greeks, nia, transl. from the German by Mrs Alex- whose insurrection, famously and un- andra Kerr (London, 1853). 226 Balcanica XLII makes its interpretation as a manifesto of ess of nation- and state-building in the “Serbian fascism” and “Greater-Serbian nineteenth-century Balkans. A similar hegemonism” not only inaccurate but also political programme originated among malignant; the contents of the Načertanije the Greeks (Megali Idea), and in , was heavily influenced by a Czech, where the programmes of several political František Zach, an agent of the Polish parties advocated a territorially expanded émigré circles in Paris headed by Count (“San-Stefano”) Bulgaria, and among Adam Czartoryski. The Načertanije con- the Albanians under the leadership of tains nothing of what Cohen insinuates, the Frasheri brothers, at the time of the especially not the wide array of cruellest Albanian League (1878), conceived of as methods for its accomplishment, includ- the renewal of the pan-Albanian tribal ing executions and deportations of non- alliance of feudal times. All subsequent Serbs. The only accurate thing is that Albanian movements drew on the tenets Garašanin marked out all Ottoman-held of the Albanian League in their aspira- regions he thought of as being Serbian tion to unite into a single Albanian state and that therefore they should gradually all areas which once had been within the join an enlarged Principality of Serbia: boundaries of four Ottoman vilayets, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, Ko- (Scutari, Kosovo, Monastir and Ioannina) sovo [northern Albania], and, if possible with roughly 44 percent of Albanian pop- in a distant future, the regions of Srem, ulation. Banat and Bačka (in present-day Serbia’s As we can see, the Načertanije was in province of Vojvodina); the Načertanije no way a phenomenon that could be seen did not discuss the Serbo-Croat relations, as exclusive to Serbian history; it was just because Garašanin did not expect as rapid one of many political programmes emerg- disintegration of the Habsburg Empire as ing at the time of nascent European na- Count Czatoryski tended to believe. tions and Romantic fascination with the It should be noted that the neigh- idea of restoring the glory of idealized bouring peoples drew up similar pro- medieval states. It did involve Serbia’s grammes, as Dimitrije Djordjević ob- territorial expansion (as all similar pro- served more than twenty years ago in a grammes did), but its underlying princi- text on the role of historicism in the proc- ples were quite legitimate at the time. The interpretation of Garašanin’s programme as a “fascist manifesto” is utterly inaccu-  D. Stranjaković, “Kako je postalo rate and tendentious. Garašaninovo Načertanije”, Spomenik XCI (Belgrade: Srpska Kraljevska Akadem- ija, 1939), 63–113; V. Začek, “Češko i  poljsko učešće u postanku Garašaninova D. Djordjević, “Uloga istoricizma u formi- ‘Načertanija’ (1844)”, Historijski zbornik ranju balkanskih nacionalnih država u de- XVI (Zagreb 1963), 35–56. vetnaestom veku”, Ogledi iz balkanske istorije (Belgrade: Srpska književna zadruga, 1989),  D. T. Bataković, “Ilija Garašanin’s 87–103. Načertanije: A Reasessement”, Balcanica  XXV-1 (Belgrade 1994), 157–183, with D. T. Bataković, “The Serbo-Albanian an English translation of Serbia’s foreign Conflict: an Historical Perspective”, in G. policy Draft (Načertanije). Cf. also a rel- Dujizings, D. Janjić, Sh. �������������Maliqi, eds., Koso- evant scholarly biography of Garašanin: vo/a. Confrontation or Coexistence (Nijmegen David Mackenzie, Ilija Garašanin: Balkan 1998), 1–14. Bismarck (Boulder & New York: Columbia  The Polish representatives to Garašanin University Press, 1985), with a chapter on pointed out the following: “Les Serbes ont the Načertanije on pp. 42–61. encore cet avantage que c’est un peuple pu- Reviews 227

Cohen’s next grand deception is his Jewish immigrants to stay permanently thesis that anti-Semitism is deeply rooted or those who had been banished to re- in Serbia. As we have seen, Cohen claims turn.10 What is important about these that Jews have been systematically dis- laws is the general and local historical criminated throughout Serbia’s modern context in which they arose. Namely, they history. At closer examination, however, arose under the regime of the Constitu- historical facts once again suggest a ma- tionalists in the middle of the nineteenth levolent and unfounded thesis. In corrob- century, when anti-Semitism raged all oration of his thesis, Cohen cites two laws over Europe and even America. In some from the period of the Constitutionalists wealthier and much better organized or Defenders of the Constitution (1842– parts of the world (e.g. the German states, 58), re-enacted under Prince Michael the Habsburg Monarchy or the Russian (Mihailo); the ideological-religious ser- empire), the Jews were subject to much mons of bishop Nikolaj Velimirović; and, harsher restrictions and discrimination finally, the political ideology of Dimitrije than they were in the Principality of Ser- Ljotić and his organization, Zbor. bia. The most restrictive measures are ob- It is a fact that there were laws impos- servable in the German lands, and as early ing restrictions on the Jews in Serbia in as the eighteenth century. The Austrian some spheres of life. However, there also Empress Maria Theresa expelled almost are some very important facts in connec- all Jews from in 1744. Thirty years tion with these laws which the author later, in 1774, she sponsored another wave completely overlooks, either deliberately of expulsion, this time of the Jews from or out of ignorance. It is true that a law Moravia and Bohemia.11 In 1816 almost of 1844 imposed occupational restric- the entire Jewish population of Lübeck tions and restrictions on the ownership of was expelled. In the second half of the real property outside Belgrade, and it is nineteenth century, after the unification also true that a law of 1856 banned the of Germany, some markedly discrimina- newly-arrived Jewish immigrants from tory laws were enacted restricting Jewish permanent residency in Serbia. These educational and occupational freedom. restrictive laws were abolished by Prince They were greatly influenced by the Jews- Miloš in 1859, and re-enacted during the are-our-misfortune policy of Heinrich second reign of Prince Michael in 1861. von Treitschke. Anti-Semitism flourished After some time, mostly under pressure in other European countries as well: in from great powers and the Pan-Jewish 1716 they were expelled from Brussels, in Alliance, the government permitted the 1775 from Warsaw. Leonard Dinerstein credibly elucidates the phenomenon of anti-Semitism in America from the ear- rement démocratique; pas de noblesse et liest settler colonies to modern times. It de clergé riches et corrompus, l’intelligence gained momentum after the Civil War qu’accompagne ordinairement l’aisance and, in the early twentieth century, as- donne droit et moyen d’arriver à tout. Dans toutes les combinaisons la nationalité serbe doit être aidée, encouragée, car elle sera un membre excessivement utile et impor- 10 tant pour la civilisation.” Quoted from S. M. Koljanin, Jevreji i antisemitizam u Champonnois, “L. Bystrzonowaski, L’Hôtel Kraljevini Jugoslaviji 1918–1941 (Belgrade: Lambert et la diplomatie française dans les Institut za savremenu istoriju, 2008), 164. Balkans 1840–1849”�, in Actes du Colloque 11 W. A. Iggers, The Jews from Bohemia and Franco-Yougoslave (Ljubljana: Centre cultu- Moravia. A historical reader (Wayne State rel Charles Nodier, 1987), 56. University Press, 1993), 27–43. 228 Balcanica XLII sumed a form of real racism.12 Finally, the do contain certain anti-Semitic excess- Great Depression of 1929 gave rise to an es.14 Even so, bishop Velimirović obvi- anti-Jewish hysteria, targeted especially at ously was not blinded by racist hatred. Wall Street bankers, who were accused of His attitude towards the Jewish people having caused the economic and financial should be interpreted in the context of crisis. According to Encyclopaedia Judaica, the fact that the interpretative framework American anti-Semitism has been the of his perception of history was biblical most serious of all in the Western world, tradition. His work shows an evolution occasionally assuming terrifying forms.13 from dogmatic criticism of Judaism to As for the Principality of Serbia in the mild anti-Judaism, though in the general Balkan context, its attitude towards the context of criticizing Europe’s dwindling Jews was similar to that of Bulgaria (af- liberalism and materialism.15 He believed ter 1878) and, to an extent, Greece. The that such a markedly non-Christian spir- position of Jews was much worse in the itual climate would lead Europe into a Principality of Wallachia, where they new disaster and wars, which eventually were subjected to mass persecution and turned out to be true. However, that the expulsion. The absence of aggressive out- bishop did not harbour racist hatred, bursts of anti-Semitism in Serbia suggests he proved it by his actions. During the that the laws, rather than being a mani- Second World War, risking his own life, festation a racist attitude, were meant bishop Nikolaj Velimirović saved a Jew- as protection of Serbian merchants and ish girl, Ela Nejhauz from Trstenik, and craftsmen from competition. The Jews her mother, from certain death.16 Had in Serbia were actually in a better posi- the bishop been anti-Semitic would not tion than in many European countries of he fared better with the Nazi German the period. Using Serbia’s few restrictive authorities? Would he have been sent to laws at a time when the Jews were overtly Dachau? The bishop’s humanity has been and harshly discriminated and persecuted testified to by an Israeli citizen, Samuel across Europe to accuse her of deeply- Aviatar. At a conference devoted to bish- rooted racially motivated anti-Semitism op Velimirović in 2003, in his essay “Sons is plainly malicious. As for Serbian bishop of Serbia and sons of Israel”, Aviatar Nikolaj Velimirović, confined by the Na- said: “Nazi Satan knew all too well why zis in 1941 and sent to Dachau concen- tration camp, along with the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, patriarch Ga- 14 E.g. bishop Velimirović’s philosophical vrilo Dožić, Cohen’s interpretation of the contemplation on biblical themes (Kroz bishop’s case is also exaggerated. Bishop tamnički prozor), written in the Nazi con- Velimirović is certainly among the most centration camp, was published four dec- prominent twentieth-century Orthodox ades later although the manuscript bore his hand-written remark: “Not to be pub- theologians, whose work also included lished.” philosophical and literary essays and po- 15 etry. Some of his writings, published after M. Koljanin, “Odnos Srpske crkve pre- ma Jevrejima i ‘jevrejskom pitanju’ (1918– his death without his written permission, 1941)”, Srpska teologija u dvadesetom veku. Istraživački problemi i rezultati (2010), 103–104. 12 L. Dinerstein, Antisemitism in America 16 As testified by Ela Trifunović (nee Na- (Oxford University Press, 1994), 58. jhauz) herself in her letter kept at the Ar- 13 Encyclopaedia Judaica, “Anti-Semitism in chives of the Serbian Orthodox Church in USA 1776–1970”, vol. 3 (2008). Belgrade. Reviews 229 he imprisoned him. He imprisoned him never been able to attract mass member- for being a man of God. For refusing to ship, Cohen writes about it at length, as renounce God.” Finally, there are, in the if it had played a central political role in history of the Christian faith and Church, Yugoslavia. Cohen’s book creates the im- theologians, much greater and more in- pression that Ljotić was the most influen- fluential than bishop Velimirović, who tial political figure in Serbia at the time. left behind more strongly anti-Semitic Ljotić ran for parliament twice, in 1935 writings. One of them is none other than and 1938, and suffered a heavy defeat the originator of the Reformation, Mar- both times. In the 1935 elections he won tin Luther. His writings were so permeat- less than one percent (0.84), and in 1938, ed with anti-Semitism that the Nazis did about one percent of the electorate. These not fail to exploit the fact and quote the figures strongly suggest that Cohen’s at- excerpts. And yet, it has never occurred tention paid to a marginal political group to anyone to denounce Martin Luther as has ulterior motives. anti-Semitic and to call for the abolition Cohen also goes at great length: (1) of his church in the Protestant countries to present occupied Serbia (1941–44) as across Europe. What follows is that any the most hideous of all satellites of Hit- evaluation of bishop Velimirović’s spirit- ler’s Germany, the one who sought to rely ual legacy should use the same, or at least on the Nazi occupation forces to accom- similar, criteria. plish its ideal of “Greater Serbia” and to Finally, Ljotić’s Zbor was created exterminate its Jews; and (2) to present in the mid-1930s, which is to say at the the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland as time it was a European-wide “trend”. a fascist and collaborationist movement. After the rise of Fascism in Italy and In this case too, Cohen arguments are un- Nazism in Germany, similar political convincing and easily refutable. movements, which obligatorily professed The first fact that requires emphasis anti-Semitism, began to burgeon all over is that Serbia in 1941–44 was a military- Europe, and their totalitarian tenets fur- administrative area under German occu- ther eroded democratic constitutionalism pation. This means that it was not a state on the continent. They found an echo in in the strict sense of the word; it was a the Balkans as well, usually as caricatured remnant of the dismembered Kingdom of local plagiarisms: the Arrow Cross in Yugoslavia, with insufficiently clear - bor Hungary, the Iron Guard in Romania, the ders, constitutional status and capacity VMRO in Bulgaria, or the Ustasha move- for establishing international relations. In ment in Croatia, are only the most promi- those unfortunate times, the unlawful acts nent representatives of the Balkan version of Nazi Germany reduced Serbia to its of Fascism and Nazism. Ljotić’s Zbor pre-1912 frontiers, with the Banat nomi- belongs into this group, but it was not nally within its borders but beyond the as extreme as the Croatian Ustasha, the reach of its institutions (effective power Hungarian Arrow Cross or the Bulgarian was exercised by the local Germans, Volk- VMRO. Unlike the Ustasha movement, deutche, who formed the SS Prinz Eugen for example, which was exclusively Croat Division). What is also to be noted is the and based on the ideology of the so-called fact that the Germans wielded ultimate Croatian “State Right” combining cleri- political power in Serbia. Of course, to calism and extreme nationalism, Zbor exercise it effectively, they needed coop- was a Yugoslav movement with a corpo- eration of the local political and military ratist ideology, replicating the patterns of factors. The powers of the Nedić govern- the Action française. Even though it had ment were restricted to administrative 230 Balcanica XLII and technical matters; which means that manding General in Serbia; and Franz it was not authorized to make political Neuhausen, General Plenipotentiary for decisions of prime importance. It was economic affairs in Serbia (there was a subordinate to the Administrative Head- special commissariat managing the im- quarters of the German Military Com- movable property of Serbia’s Jews) — the mand. Thus it had to provide all assistance “five kings of Serbia”, as Browning calls to the occupation authorities in carrying them. These high-ranking officials of out anti-Semitic, anti-Masonic and anti- the Third Reich in Belgrade, Browning Resistance measures (against the Yugoslav stresses, hardly ever agreed among them- Army in the Homeland and the Commu- selves. But they did on the issue of setting nists) to maintain “peace and order”. Re- up a camp for Serbia’s Jews.18 It should search carried out by Walter Manoschek, be noted that the Sajmište camp was lo- Christopher Browning and Menachem cated on the left bank of the Sava, i.e. on Schelach has shown that the policy of ex- the soil of the clerico-fascist Independent termination of the Jews and Freemasons, State of Croatia (NDH). Therefore, Ben- conceived and articulated in the capital zler had turned to the Reich’s embassy in of the Third Reich, was the exclusive re- Zagreb and the NDH authorities asking sponsibility of the representatives of Nazi permission to use Sajmište as a transit Germany in occupied Serbia. This means, camp for the deported Jewish women and then, that the domestic collaborationist children. The Croatian authorities grant- administration had no say in the matter; ed his request with the proviso that: (1) its responsibility was to provide “techni- the camp should be guarded by Germans cal assistance” in its implementation.17 and not by Serbs, and that (2) the camp In that sense, the Sajmište concentration should be supplied from Serbia and not camp and the 1941 anti-Masonic exhibi- the NDH.19 tion were elements of a global Nazi policy At Sajmište, which operated as an which was carried out in all countries un- SS-managed camp from October 1941 der German occupation, Serbia included. until July 1944, several thousand Jews, Responsible for the horrendous crimes Serbs and Roma were brutally murdered. committed against the Jewish and other It should be noted that an airtight vehi- populations (Serb and Roma) in Serbia cle for mass carbon-monoxide poisoning were: Felix Benzler, Plenipotentiary of was in use between mid-March and May the German Foreign Ministry in Serbia; 1942.20 The vehicle was then transferred to Harald Turner, head of the Military Ad- Riga to continue fulfilling its horrendous ministration in Serbia; Wilhelm Fuchs, SS purpose. This method of mass murder was Oberführer, head of the Einsatzgruppe in also in use in the Chelmno concentration Serbia; Paul Bader, Plenipotentiary Com-

17 W. Manoschek, “ ‘Gehst mit Juden er- 18 Ch. Browning, Fateful Months: Essays on schiessen?’. Die Venichtung der Juden in the Emergence of the Final Solution (London: Serbien”, in H. Heer and K. Naumann, eds., Holmes and Meier, 1985), 70. Vernichtungskrieg: Verbrechen der Werma- 19 cht 1941–1944 (Hamburg 1995), 39; Ch. Browning, “The Final Solution in Serbia”, Browning, “The Final Solution in Serbia. 58. The Semlin Judenlager: A Case Study”, Yad 20 For more detail see M. Koljanin, Nemački Vashem Studies XV ( Jerusalem 1983), 55–90; logor na Beogradskom sajmištu 1941–1944 M. Shelach, “Sajmište – An Extermination (Belgrade, ISI 1992); Browning, Fateful Camp in Serbia”, Holocaust and Genocide Months; Browning, “The Final Solution in Studies 2: 2 (1987), 243–260. Serbia”; Shelach, “Sajmište. Reviews 231 camp in and in the occupied parts bia recorded in the database of the Yad of the USSR. Vashem memorial centre, even though, As part of the Nazi anti-Masonic pol- according to Jaša Almuli, such noble ef- icy, the anti-Masonic exhibition mounted forts were much more numerous.22 Many in Belgrade in 1941 was targeted at the rescuers (or their descendants) have been Jews, Freemasons and Communists. It awarded Yad Vashem’s honour of the was organized under the patronage of the Righteous among the Nations. What is occupation authorities, and the collabo- important to emphasize is, that of all new rationist Nedić government was under countries that emerged from the former an obligation to stage it and to publi- Yugoslavia, Serbia has the largest number cize it, including the issuance of postage of the “Righteous”. And why is it impor- stamps for the occasion.21 Far from being tant? Because Cohen claims that the Jews, a Serbian invention, such anti-Masonic in contrast to Serbia where they have campaigns were being launched in other always been persecuted and felt unsafe, European countries where Nazi Germany have found home and safety in Croatia, installed puppet regimes. For example, in with the exception of the NDH period. August 1940 the Vichy regime of General Historical fact, however, shows the pres- Petain enacted a law authorizing the po- ence in Croatia, as an integral part of the lice to persecute and arrest Freemasons as Habsburg Monarchy, of organized anti- enemies of France, and an anti-Masonic Semitism, which occasionally assumed exhibition mounted later that year toured extreme forms of racist and religious ha- the entire country. And once again, it has tred. By act of the Croatian Diet of 1609, never occurred to anyone to accuse France the Roman was the only and the French en bloc of anti-Semitism recognized church in Croatia and Slavo- and anti-Freemasonry. nia, which had far-reaching implications Based on all the historically founded for the position of other religious commu- counterarguments quoted above, one can nities, especially the Orthodox Christian only re-emphasize that there had never and Judaic. The act remained in force for been organized and state-sponsored, ra- decades. Domestic merchants frequently cially and religiously based anti-Semitism organized strong anti-Jewish protests, in Serbia, and that Serbia and the Serbs, as probably in a bid to protect themselves a prominent ally of the anti-Axis coalition, against competition, but more often than made a significant contribution to the not these protests involved physical as- struggle against Nazism and Fascism dur- saults on Jews. For example, the anti-Se- ing the Second World War. Serbs dem- mitic demonstrations organized by the onstrated it by their mass participation association of Zagreb (Agram) merchants in the antifascist struggle, either within in 1838/9, were accompanied by the dem- General Mihailović’s Yugoslav Army in olition of Jewish shops and the beating of the Homeland or within Josip Broz Tito’s Jews, and followed by the demand that pro-Communist Partisan forces. It is also they all be expelled from Zagreb.23 Similar a fact that Serbs in occupied Serbia risked their own lives trying to save the lives of 22 their Jewish fellow citizens. Until now, J. Almuli, Stradanje i spasavanje srpskih there have been 125 such cases in Ser- Jevreja (Belgrade 2010), 109; M. Fogel, M. Ristović and M. Koljanin, Righteous among the Nations – Serbia (Belgrade: Jewish Com- 21 M. Koljanin, “Antisemitski stereotipi i munity in Zemun, 2010), 6–7. propaganda u Srbiji 1941–1942”, Istorija 20. 23 Koljanin, Antisemitizam u Kraljevini Jugo- veka 1 (2003), 83–119. slaviji, 117–118. 232 Balcanica XLII demands could be heard in other Croatian should be skinned off!”28 Those were the towns, most prominently in Karlovac and words of an indisputable political leader Varaždin,24 and they resurfaced during the in a country Cohen describes as the saf- revolutionary events of 1848/9; for ex- est place for Jews, for their lives and their ample, in early 1848, the town council of property. Croatian anti-Semitism contin- Slavonska Požega passed an ordinance on ued into interwar Yugoslavia, but it took the expulsion of all Jews except for a sin- monstrous proportions in the Independ- gle “deserving” family, but the ordinance ent State of Croatia during the Second was not endorsed by the district authori- World War, where Jews, Serbs, Roma and ties and the Ban, Josip Jelačić.25 Animos- other “non-Arian” races were outlawed.29 ity towards the Jews was fuelled by the A number of racist laws were enacted, profoundly anti-Semitic ideology of the providing “legal” definitions of “Jews” and Croatian state right ideology shaped by “Gypsies” (Racial Affiliation Act).30 The Ante Starčević and Eugen Kvaternik in implementation of these laws was clari- the 1860s, but it was not until Josip Frank fied by the Poglavnik of the NDH, Ante replaced Starčević in the 1890s that anti- Pavelić, in his interview for the Berliner Semitism practically became a legitimate Bersen Zeitung of 5 May 1941: “…the political ideology, which found its promot- Jewish question will be radically resolved ers among intellectual circles and Roman and, in accordance with the racial and Catholic clergymen.26 It was manifested economic views, the country will also in written form, such as newspaper arti- be cleansed of Freemasons.”31 It follows cles, brochures and vilifying tracts, which from all this that Cohen is either poorly were so abundant that Ivo Goldstein finds acquainted with Croatian history and the it justified to describe them as an organ- history of anti-Semitism in the Balkans or ized anti-Semitic campaign.27 In the early very biased. twentieth century, public life in Croatia Cohen’s book exhibits all features of a was permeated with anti-Semitism, and racist vilification with clear political goals: its most vocal promoters were the Radić to discredit and criminalize Serbia’s mod- brothers and their Croatian Peasant Party. ern history, to present the Serbian nation- Stjepan Radić’s anti-Jewish rants in the al idea as criminal, to accuse the Serbs of Croatian Diet in 1916 are a well-known being naturally anti-Semitic and predis- fact, and so is his advice to the electorate: “For God’s sake, do not destroy [Jewish property]! Why would you destroy what is 28 Koljanin, Antisemitizam u Kraljevini Ju- yours? To rob the Jews is not enough, they goslaviji, 135. 29 Cf. a Jewish Holocaust survivor’s recently published testimony about the genocide against Jews and Serbs, slaughtered in hun- 24 dreds of thousands in the largest Croatian I. Goldstein, “Antisemitizam u Hrvat- Ustasha concentration camp, Jasenovac: skoj. Korijeni, pojava i razvoj antisemitizma Cadik I. Danon Braco, The Smell of Human u Hrvatskoj”, in Antisemitizam, holokaust, Flesh. A Witness of the Holocaust. Memories of antifašizam (Zagreb 1996), 14. Jasenovac (Belgrade: Dosije, 2006). 25 Koljanin, Antisemitizam u Kraljevini Ju- 30 “Ustaša”. Dokumenti o ustaškom pokretu goslaviji, 118. (Zagreb: Zagrebačka stvarnost, 1995), 160– 26 M. Gross, Povijest pravaške ideologije (Za- 161. greb: Sveučilište u Zagrebu, Institut za hr- 31 A. Pavelić, “Židovsko će se pitanje vatsku povijest, 1973), 197. radikalno riješiti”, in “Ustaša”. Dokumenti o 27 Goldstein, “Antisemitizam u Hrvatskoj”, 17. ustaškom pokretu, 171. Reviews 233 posed to fascist and any other totalitarian book Bespuća povijesne zbiljnosti,32 and for ideology, and to relativize the crimes of publicly stating that he was happy that his the Independent State of Croatia. That wife was neither Jewish nor Serbian. Co- this book, published in the 1990s, was to hen’s purportedly scholarly approach to serve propaganda and revisionist purposes Serbia’s history proves to be just another may be seen from the fact that there soon of many failed attempts to falsify the past followed its translated editions in Za- in order to accommodate some narrow greb and , while the author was nationalist or immediate political goals. awarded a medal for merit by the Presi- dent of the Republic of Croatia, Franjo Tudjman, known not only as the architect 32 Franjo Tudjman, Bespuća povijesne zbilj- of the ethnic cleansing of Croatia of its nosti. Rasprava o povijesti i filozofiji zlosilja Serbian population, but also for markedly (Zagreb: Nakladni zavod Matice hrvatske, anti-Semitic views in his programmatic 1990).

Jaša Almuli, Stradanje i spasavanje srpskih Jevreja [Suffering and rescue of Serbian Jews]. Belgrade: Zavod za udžbenike i nastavna sredstva, 2010, pp. 392. Reviewed by Veljko Stanić*

The book of the renowned journalist and govore [ Jewish women speaking], Živi publicist Jaša Almuli re-examines the i mrtvi [The living and the dead], and tragic fate of the Jewish community in Jevreji i Srbi u Jasenovcu [ Jews and Serbs Serbia during the Second World War. A in Jasenovac], the latter being a collection result of the author’s twenty years of re- of sixteen testimonies of the former pris- search into the Holocaust in Yugoslavia, it oners of Jasenovac, the largest extermina- belongs to the field of microhistory stud- tion camp in what had been the Kingdom ies, but it also looks at the Jewish question of Yugoslavia, managed by the Croatian in occupied Serbia in the overall context Ustasha regime in the Independent State of the Holocaust. of Croatia 1941–1945. Almuli, born in 1918, comes from a The book presented here is organized Belgrade Jewish family himself. Under into three main parts. The first offers an Nazi invasion in April 1941, the young account of the persecution of Jews in Ser- man managed to leave Belgrade, but was bia by the Gestapo after the Kingdom of arrested in Montenegro and transferred Yugoslavia collapsed and Serbia was oc- to a prison in Italy. After the war, he pur- cupied by German troops and put under sued a career in journalism. He was a dis- a system of military administration. The tinguished political commentator, news second part reveals a less known aspect agency editor and foreign correspondent of the occupation period: the rescue of for Yugoslav newspapers, notably from Jews under Nazi threat. Finally, the third South America and the United States. part revisits some controversial issues of The research Almuli, as a privileged the Jewish question in Serbia. Apart from interlocutor of Jewish Holocaust survi- doing his own research, Almuli under- vors, has been carrying out over the last lines the importance of widely recognized two decades has considerably improved our knowledge and resulted in several important publications, such as Jevrejke * Institute for Balkan Studies, Belgrade