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Dr Dragan Cvetković
Museum of genocide victims
Belgrade, Serbia

 

CAMPS TOPOVSKE ŠUPE AND SAJMIŠTE AS CENTRAL PLACES OF THE HOLOCAUST IN OCCUPIED SERBIA – NUMERICAL DETERMINATION AND QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS

Vol. XXXVI, 1/2018, pp. 69–92
https://doi.org/10.29362/ist20veka.2018.1.cve.69-92

 

ABSTRACT/RESUME: The paper is an attempt to show the central role of Topovske šupe camp and Judenlager Semlin in the destruction of the Jewish community in Occupied Serbia based on the partially revised list „Victims of War 1941–1945“. The article deals with the territorial belonging of the killed Jews, the gender, age and professional structure of their losses in these two camps, and shows the share of losses from these two camps in the total losses of the Jewish community. As part of a unique process in Europe, the Holocaust on the territory of Occupied Serbia has hit the entire Jewish population, inflicting irreparable losses. Unfortunately, no precise number has been established in the Holocaust of the stricken Jews from the territory of Occupied Serbia, as the number of survivors is unknown. The most frequently quoted estimate is 13.600 (82% of their pre-war number). Among the dead civilians of the Occupied Serbia Jews accounted for 11.20% of losses, while in the pre-war population of this territory only 0.33% were incurred, so the Jewish community suffered losses in the Holocaust 33.94 times more than their representation in the population. The Holocaust in the territory of Occupied Serbia was closely linked to the Topovske šupe camps and Sajmište camps (Judenlager Semlin), where 86.47% of all killed members of the Jewish community from this territory lost their lives, alongside with killed Jews from other parts of Yugoslavia as well as abroad. In those two camps 79.51% of all male victims of the Jewish community of occupied Serbia were killed, while 94.32% of all female victims were killed in Sajmište. While in the Topovske šupe victims were men aged 15 to 60 years of different professions (80.37% were businessmen, workers, officials and experts), were members of the Jewish community executed in the Judenlager Semlin were of all ages (28.44% were children under 14 and 10.90% were person older than 65) and all professional groups (63.72% were dependent persons). An analysis of the internal structure of the suffered losses of the Jews shows that these two camps represented the central place of the Holocaust in Occupied Serbia that did not spare any segment of the Jewish community.

 

KEYWORDS: Holocaust, Jews, occupied Serbia, regions, gender, age and professional structure, concentration camps, Topovske šupe, Sajmište

 

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