INTRODUCTION 1 SURVIVAL IN SARAJEVO This exhibition has been created in partnership The photograph The map below, with the Jewish community of Sarajevo and its above was taken published by Fama JEWS, MUSLIMS, SERBS AND humanitarian aid agency, for Time Magazine International, shows the in April 1995, siege of Sarajevo and CROATS WORKING TOGETHER La Benevolencija. In the early 1990s, as Yugoslavia when Bosnian the Bosnian Serb gun DURING THE BOSNIAN WAR, tore itself apart, this tiny Jewish community decided President Alija emplacements during it could not, and would not, take sides in the conflict. Izetbegovic attended the Passover seder in the the siege, from 1992 until 1995. 1992–1995 After all, Bosnian Jews traced themselves back Sarajevo synagogue. The book is the legendary hundreds Sarajevo Haggadah. For more than 1,000 years, the Jakob Finci in the AN EXHIBITION FROM CENTROPA Haggadah is the book Jewish families have been Sarajevo Jewish Museum, of years in this region, and for the most part, using at the dinner table during each Passover seder January 1994. Credits for the historical and archival photographs got along rather well with their Muslim, Serbian (around Easter time) to tell the story of the Exodus are provided below. All photographs taken between Orthodox and Croatian Catholic neighbors. from Egypt. This particular illuminated Haggadah 1985 and 1996 were taken by Edward Serotta. The was painted on the finest vellum, and decorated photographs were taken on assignment for Time Out of respect for La Benevolencija, and the with gold leaf. Experts surmise that it was made for a Magazine, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and Die Zeit. All non-sectarian role it continues to play today, this family in south-eastern Spain around 1370. these images appeared in Survival in Sarajevo: Jews, exhibition attempts to be as apolitical as possible, Bosnia, and the Lessons of the Past, by Edward and focuses primarily on the story of Bosnia’s Jews, How the book came to Sarajevo is a mystery. Serotta, published in 1994 by the Brandstätter Verlag, and what they, and their non- Jewish neighbors, did We know it was in Italy in the 17th century, and Vienna, and Distributed Art Publishers, New York. for their city during the war from 1992 to 1995. This somehow, it made its way across the Adriatic, exhibition, then, is genuinely about how civil society where a boy by the name of Kohen sold it to a local This exhibition was made possible by the American can function, even in the bleakest of times. museum in Sarajevo in 1894. Since Bosnia was then Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the Milton in Austria-Hungary, the book was sent to Vienna for and Rozlyn Wolf Family Foundation. The exhibition This exhibition also attempts to provide at least appraisal, where art experts in the Fine Arts Museum was designed by Silvie Weber in Vienna, and pre- some background to the Sephardic Jewish history of declared it to be a medieval masterpiece, hence its production was carried out by Martina Lang, the Balkans, in order to provide the visitor with a bit fame. of perspective. Silvie Weber, Denis Karalic, Evgenij Gretscko and In the picture left are the words found near the front Wolfgang Els. Special thanks to Michael Haderer, Sarajevo synagogue, of every Haggadah which are recited on the first Ouriel Morgensztern, Jakob Finci and Chuck Sudetic. late afternoon. two nights of Passover: “All who are hungry, let them October 1993. come and eat. All who are in need of fellowship, let Archival credits: them come and celebrate Passover with us.” Jewish Museum of Bosnia Jewish Museum of Serbia These words became the unspoken motto of La Collection Gerard Levy, Paris Benevolencija, the Jewish humanitarian aid agency. The family collections of Hana Gasic, and Rahela Although Passover is a holiday that lasts eight days, Perisic Jewish Museum of Vienna Sarajevo is a long, narrow city stretched along the in Sarajevo, it lasted three years. The collection of Bill Gross, Tel Aviv Miljacka River, with steep hills rising on all sides - Holocaust Memorial Center of Macedonia ideal for artillery and snipers; hell on those living below. The airport was in the hands of the United Nations during the siege. Sarajevo residents were not allowed to cross the tarmac to reach the one sliver of land that led to Bosnian government-controlled territory. Enterprising Sarajevans simply dug a tunnel under it. www.centropa.org 2 HISTORY 3 Sarajevo was founded around 1460, in the early years Courtyard of Il Kal Viejo, the Members of the Sarajevo may not have been welcomed in every case, but of Ottoman rule. The first Jews – descended from Great Synagogue, built in Jewish community dressed in by and large, families could count on the Partisans those expelled from Spain in 1492—arrived in the the 16th century. It remained traditional costume, waiting for protection, and Jews in Bosnia, and the rest of city in the mid-1500s. These Sephardic Jews settled in active use until German for the arrival of Austrian Yugoslavia, served on the front lines. throughout the region—from Split on the Adriatic Wehrmacht and Croatian Emperor Franz Josef, who coast to Salonika on the Aegean—and in scores of Ustasha soldiers burned it in visited the city in 1908. A Serbian Jew, Moshe Pijade, was Tito’s right hand towns in between. 1941. It is now the Sarajevo man. Beno Ruso, barely 20-years-old when the war Jewish Museum. Old postcard of the Sarajevo swept into Macedonia, finished the war as a general. The Sephardim (Sefarad means Iberia in Hebrew) Jewish cemetery, founded Eleven Yugoslav Jews were designated National brought to the Balkans skills they had been in the 1600s. These oblong Heroes at the war’s end, and four of them were from developing in Spain for centuries. They excelled tombstones, which stand on a Sarajevo. as tinsmiths and in leather tanning. They traded in The keys from Spain. Legend high hill overlooking the city, glass, textiles and furs. Centuries of study had taught has it among Sephardic Jews are unique. Personal stories from the them pharmacology and medicine. that when they left their homes in Spain, they took their keys old postcard of Jewish Centropa archive As the Ottoman Empire continued its expansion with them, hoping to return. merchant in Salonika. The Albahari family traced its roots back centuries in through the end of the 1600s, Jewish communities The story may well be apocryphal, but these three Bosnia. This photograph was taken in the Bosnian town prospered. But as the Ottoman Empire began its keys, belonging to the Sarajevo city museum, are said of Sanski Most in 1928, where the family owned a long and painful decline, the fortunes of its Jewish to have come from a Bosnian Jewish family that struggling dry goods store. The adults in the picture communities suffered as well. Many of the Balkan traced its roots back to Iberia. above left are David and Luna Albahari, and David’s Sephardim were poor and uneducated. By the brother Jakob and his wife Rena. While David and mid-19th century, the Alliance from France helped The Moorish style synagogue Luna and their children managed to survive the war developed better schooling, hospitals and social was built in 1902 by the by joining Tito’s Partisans, Jakob’s entire family was programs. Ashkenazi Jews, who began murdered. moving to Bosnia after the Sephardic Jews proudly identified with their Spanish Austrian occupation in 1878. Approximately 75,000 Jews lived in Yugoslavia in Centropa interviewed Rahela homeland: in their mode of dress, the lovely Spanish The synagogue is the sole early 1941. In March of that year, Nazi Germany Perisic in Belgrade in 2005. romances they sang, and with their language, Judeo- remaining Jewish prayer house invaded and overran the country. Yugoslavia was Español, or Ladino. today. then divided among the Hungarians, Italians, Bulgarians and Germans. Croatia became its own Throughout the Ottoman centuries in the Balkans, The white leather driving puppet fascist state, run by the Ustashe. Jews were never forced to live in ghettos, as was gloves of Julius Brod. This This photo was taken of Moris their fate in northern Europe, and under the photograph was taken in Yugoslavia’s Jews would travel different routes and his sister Rahela while they Ottomans, there had been no pogroms against the home of Ljerka Danon, during the war but their paths led to the same place: were serving as teenagers in them. daughter of Julius Brod. Brod, death—by firing squads, gas vans, deportations Tito’s Partisans. Moris had his an Austrian soldier in the to Croatian run concentration camps, or Nazi bar mitzvah in the Partisans. “A Ottoman rule collapsed in most of the Balkans in K&K Railway Corps, was given the honor of driving concentration camps in German-occupied Poland. group of Jewish doctors stood 1878. Bosnia-Hercegovina was occupied by Austria- the train that brought Archduke Franz Ferdinand 75–80% of the country’s Jews were murdered. with me in a barn one day in Hungary and the first Ashkenazim (or Jews from to Sarajevo in June 1914. These are the gloves he the snow and helped me with northern and eastern Europe) arrived in the city. wore. That is his snapshot. After the First World War, Pre-war, 8,000 – 10,000 Jews lived in Sarajevo, the service.” Rahela married and moved to Belgrade Brod, a Czech Jew, came back to Sarajevo, which he of whom 80% were Sephardim, the rest were after the war. Moris remained in Sarajevo during the had fallen in love with.