Abstract: The article analyses the longstanding ambition of the nationalist elite in Serbia to have the site of the former Nazi concentration camp Sajmište in Belgrade transformed into a ‘Serbian Yad Vashem’, i.e. a memorial to Serbian victims of genocide in the Independent State of Croatia and the suffering of Serbs in the Ustasha-run concentration camp Jasenovac in Croatia. By deconstructing various assumptions about the historical link between Sajmište and Jasenovac which have been used to justify this initiative, the chapter draws attention to the tradition of manipulation of the history of the two camps in Serbia. It also shows that the origins of the contentious interpretation of the history of Sajmište, lie, in part, in the ‘memory wars’ between Serbian and Croatian nationalists who, in the 1990s, skilfully manipulated the history of both Sajmište and Jasenovac, all in the context of mutual accusations of ‘genocidal tendencies’, complicity in the Holocaust and antisemitism. Therefore, debates about Sajmište and its links with Jasenovac should be seen as yet another example of the interdependence between Serbian and Croatian nationalist discourses, which, over the past three decades have resisted attempts to forge a historically grounded culture of remembrance of the victims of the Second World War in Yugoslavia. Also, through the story of the memorialisation of Sajmište, the chapter points to the lasting effect which events of the 1990s have had on historical memory in Serbia, especially in relation to the Holocaust, and other crimes perpetrated in Yugoslavia between 1941 and 1945.
Abstract: The Semlin concentration camp (also known by its Serbian name Sajmište) was one of the main sites of the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Serbia. Established by Nazi Germany in December 1941 on the outskirts of Belgrade, Semlin was one of the first concentration camps in Europe created specifically for the internment of Jews. Between March and May 1942, approximately 7,000 Jewish women, children and the elderly (almost half of the total Jewish population of Nazi-occupied Serbia) were systematically murdered there by the use of a mobile gas van.
In spite of its importance as a site of the Holocaust, for much of the post-war period the Semlin camp occupied a marginal place in Yugoslav/Serbian public memory. Even today, sixty seven years after the liberation of Belgrade, the site where the camp was located, best known by the name Staro sajmište – the Old fairgrounds - stands practically in ruins, awaiting conservation and transformation into a suitable place of remembrance.
The book Staro Sajmište: A site remembered, forgotten, contested - published in the year which marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the Semlin concentration camp – offers the first detailed account of the post-war history of this place of the Holocaust. Based on extensive research using both archival sources and secondary literature, the book reveals a whole array of largely unknown details about the post-war history of this locality, and in doing so draws attention to the continuity in the marginalization of Staro Sajmište as a place of the Holocaust. By analyzing Staro Sajmište as a place that has been simultaneously remembered, forgotten and contested, the book makes a significant contribution towards existing debates about Serbian society’s attitude towards the past, especially towards the Second World War and the Holocaust.
Abstract: This paper proposes that understanding the causes of anti-Semitic hate crime requires the
recognition of the cultural specificity of anti-Semitism, reflected in its unique mythical and
conspiratorial nature. By neglecting to consider the idiosyncrasies of anti-Semitic rhetoric,
general theories of hate crime often fail to provide an adequate explanation for the
persistence of anti-Jewish violence, especially in cultures where Jews do not constitute a
conspicuous minority, or where there is no noticeable tradition of anti-Jewish sentiment.
This point is illustrated using as an example the emergence of anti-Semitic hate crime in
Serbia in the aftermath of political changes in October 2000. The paper explores this
development in the context of Serbia’s recent past, arguing that the onset of violent
incidents towards Jews entailed two distinct but related stages, both of which are linked to
the conspiratorial nature of anti-Semitic ideology. The first phase – which culminated at
the time of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia – involved the proliferation of the belief in
Jewish conspiracy. At this stage, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, which were to be found
even in the mainstream media, retained an ‘abstract’ quality and their proliferation did
not, in itself, lead to anti-Jewish hate crime. The onset of anti-Semitic violence is
associated with the second phase, which followed Milošević’s downfall, when, with the
marginalisation of conspiratorial culture, the belief in Jewish conspiracy, as an abstract
ideological position, became reified and transformed into concrete instances of violence
against the local Jewish population. In exploring this two-stage process, the paper
highlights the way in which a closer examination of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and
other anti-Semitic texts can help shed some light on the dynamic underpinning the
persistence of anti-Jewish hate crime in modern society.
