Mapping the Holocaust – Places of Remembrance in Serbia

Centre for Public History

Content / Topics:

The Project is comprised in three parts:

1.  Mapping of the Holocaust remembrance sights

2.  The exhibition

3.  The publication.

The first part of the project was tasked with locating, researching, documenting and classifying historically important sights that were used either as concentration camps or killing sights for the Roma and Jewish population during the Second World War. The project was able to map nine camps and twelve killing sights in Serbia.

The mapped camps are: Topovske Šupe, Staro Sajmište, The Banjica camp, Novi Bečej, Šabac, Crveni Krst – Niš, Subotica, Zrenjanin and The Bor mine.

The mapped killing sights are: Jajinci, Rakovica, Ledine, Bubanj potok, Deliblato, Jabuka, Zasavica, Kragujevac, Kraljevo, Bubanj – Niš, Leskovac and Novi Sad.

Second part of the project was the exhibition under the title The Holocaust in Serbia supported by the US Embassy in Belgrade, on the subject of persecution, internment and killing of Jews and Roma in Serbia during World War II as places of remembrance. The exhibition is intended for primary and secondary school students in Serbia – through archival documents, photographs, newspaper articles and accompanying historical texts they were able to learn about the history of the Roma and the Jews in Serbia before the World War II, the events in Serbia during the occupation and the first persecution of Jews and Roma, the killing sites and camps in Serbia, but also the resistance and the rescuing of Jews and Roma by their compatriots and neighbors. The first exhibition was opened on 2 March at the Prva beogradska gimnazija (The First Belgrade Grammar School) after which it was opened at the Novi Bečej National Library.

And the third part was the publication that followed the exhibition  on the camps for Jews and Roma in Serbia, which describes the places that were the last destination for thousands of people before their deaths was presented at the exhibition. In this way, we wanted to pay special attention to the current state of those places. While some of them have been marked and turned into memorials and museums, many of the sites do not have any landmarks which would indicate they used to house concentration camps.

Target groups: Primary and secondary school students.

Method(s) / Format(s): Mapping (collection of historical evidence and documentation of sites through photography), exhibition and publication.

Language(s): Serbian and English.

 

Niš © Vladimir Opsenica

 

Niš  © Vladimir Opsenica