‘We Liberated Ourselves from Italians!’: Jewish Agency, Self-Organisation, and Resistance in the Italian-Occupied Dalmatia, 1941–3

Željka Oparnica

doi:10.1017/S0960777324000602

‘We Liberated Ourselves from Italians!’: Jewish Agency, Self-Organisation, and Resistance in the Italian-Occupied Dalmatia, 1941–3

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 June 2025

Željka Oparnica

Show author details

Željka Oparnica*: Affiliation:
Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia
*: Email: zeljka.oparnica@ifdt.bg.ac.rs

Article contents

Abstract
‘Ideologically Different, but Close’: Jewish Inter-War Political Ideologies and Organisations in Inter-War Yugoslavia
Conclusion
Footnotes

Rights & Permissions

Abstract

Jewish resistance to the destruction of European Jewry during the Nazi era has stirred many scholars; however, some areas of war-torn Europe remain neglected in this respect, for instance Italy and Italian-occupied territories. This article aims to unearth the Jewish history of Jewish resistance in the Italian province of Dalmatia between June 1941 and September 1943, emphasising longer evolution of political ideology, personal networks and social organisations that fostered and sustained resistance. Based on either as-yet unknown or rarely used testimonies of the Holocaust survivors who spent the war years in Dalmatia, this article argues that these are crucial to understand why and how Jewish politics in inter-war Yugoslavia enabled Jews to self-organise and to start and sustain open resistance to fascism.

Information

Type: Article
Information: Contemporary European History , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , August 2025, pp. 988 - 1008
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0960777324000602 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press.

Since the early days of the liberation of Europe in autumn 1944, a topic has inspired the pens of commentators, journalists, policy writers and historians alike: the fact that a significant number of Jews survived the destruction of European Jewry in the territories Italy occupied, and in Dalmatia especially.Footnote ¹ In accounting for this remarkable case, historians have predominantly credited the benevolence of Italians and the Italian army towards JewsFootnote ² or the anti-fascist nature of resistance movements, in this case the Yugoslav Liberation Army,Footnote ³ and acknowledged, even if to a lesser extent, Jewish participation in resistance movements.Footnote ⁴ However, was there anything particularly Jewish about Jewish liberation in Italian-occupied territories, for instance Dalmatia? Judging by Geza B., one of approximately 2,500 Holocaust survivors who spent the war years in Dalmatia,Footnote ⁵ it was not just that Jews had a role but rather: ‘We [Jews] liberated ourselves from Italians!’Footnote ⁶

This article delves into the Jewish history of Jewish resistance in Dalmatia from June 1941 to September 1943. Drawing from diverse survivor accounts and a wealth of literature, this article elucidates the mechanisms through which Jewish political culture in inter-war Yugoslavia allowed for personal networks and social structures that facilitated the initiation and perseverance of open resistance to fascism in Dalmatia. Based on examples from Minsk, Krakow and Bialystok, Evgeny Finkel has already demonstrated the connection between Jewish behaviour during the war and the political structures that existed prior to the political regimes that aimed at destruction of Jewish communities.Footnote ⁷ This approach is relevant for my own analysis since, prior to Yugoslavia’s entry into the war in April 1941, diverse Jewish political groups in this state were actively resisting antisemitism and fascism, within both Jewish and non-Jewish organisations.Footnote ⁸ Yet, I am also intrigued by the impact of this hybrid, both Jewish and not exclusively Jewish political culture on the formation of social networks that, ultimately, sparked Jewish resistance as part of general anti-fascist struggle in Dalmatia and Yugoslavia. In light of this, I focus on tracing Jewish resistance through an examination of inter-war Jewish political culture, predominantly looking at Jewish political organisations and how they interlink with progressive youth movements and the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.

Definitions of Jewish resistance are numerous, and they span from accounting for only armed resistance to recognition of spiritual,Footnote ⁹ passiveFootnote ¹⁰ and humanitarian resistanceFootnote ¹¹ to ‘silence and small gestures’.Footnote ¹² I adopt Evgeny Finkel’s broad characterisation inclusive of Jewish resistance as ‘involvement in organised activity aimed at harming the personnel and property of perpetrators of mass violence’, in this case Italian occupation forces, as well as ‘unarmed and nonviolent acts’ like gathering and disseminating information to the anti-fascist groups.Footnote ¹³ Moreover, as per my sources, I identify menza (canteen) as a social organisation that developed into a political entity dedicated to Jewish representation and ultimately functioned as a tool of resistance.

The article directly engages with the interpretation of Jewish involvement with the wider People’s Liberation Movement, operating in occupied Yugoslavia and led by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. But how can we differentiate between Jewish and general resistance? This issue has troubled a long line of scholars. Shmuel Krakowski’s influential 1984 study delved into the unique social dynamics of the Jewish partisan movement in Poland in comparison to the general Polish resistance. He identified differences in motivation, organisation, enemies and relations with the local population.Footnote ¹⁴ The same question led Renée Poznanski to point out the differences between Jews who belonged to different political organisations. Drawing from the sources, the paper will detail the ways in which Jewish personal and group networks, as well as ideological openness and cooperation between political groups long before the war, shaped the Jewish experience of resistance in Dalmatia.

Finally, scholars have recognised that Jewish resistance depends on the anti-Jewish measures of the Nazi and Axis allies and their collaborators and their intentions and occupation policies, which essentially differ from one occupation zone to the next, as seen for instance in Poznanski’s work on Jewish participation in the French resistance,Footnote ¹⁵ Arelia Lang’s on the case of Jews in Italy,Footnote ¹⁶ Steven Bowman’s on Jews in GreeceFootnote ¹⁷ or more recently Finkel on resistance in Minsk, Krakow and BialystokFootnote ¹⁸ and Rachel Einwohner on the case of uprisings in Jewish ghettos in Poland.Footnote ¹⁹ This article follows a regional focus with its emphasis on Dalmatia. The Italian province studied here is the region of Mussolini’s ‘limited annexation’ formed on 18 May 1941 when the Duce gave up Dubrovnik, the islands of Brač (Brazza) and Hvar (Lessina) in order to retain Split (Spalato) and its surroundings, Šibenik (Sebenico), Trogir (Trau) and the majority of the islands.Footnote ²⁰ However, what is so specific about Dalmatia?

A unique case of Jewish resistance to fascism happened in Italian-occupied Dalmatia. After an entire summer of political turbulence in the Italian political leadership in 1943, the execution of Mussolini and the so-called short armistice with the Allies, Italian troops started to retreat and desert.Footnote ²¹ This also happened on the island Rab (Arbe), then part of Fiume province, where the largest camp with Jewish inmates was located. However, the majority of Jews in the camp came to Rab from the province of Dalmatia. In the town of Kampor on the island, 247 Jews formed the only all-Jewish fighting unit in Yugoslav territories – the so-called Jewish battalion, or the fifth battalion of the Rab brigade.Footnote ²² One of the three leaders of the battalion, Viktor Hajon, wrote in 1955: ‘In my opinion, the most important moment, which characterises the entire struggle of Jews in Yugoslavia led against fascism, is the formation of the Jewish brigade’.Footnote ²³ However, Jewish resistance went hand in hand with the political goals of the National Liberation Struggle (Narodnooslobodilački poket, NOP) led by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. Recently, Emil Kerenji pointed out that the communist-led partisan army in Dalmatia named liberation of Jews as one of its war goals.Footnote ²⁴ The NOP showed dedication to this aim when it organised the evacuation of Jews, alongside Croats, Slovenes and Serbs, from the camps on Rab, ahead of the arriving Nazi troops in late autumn 1943.Footnote ²⁵ This act, unique in the context of the destruction of European Jewish communities and the Second World War, exemplifies certain ideological compatibility between the NOP and Jewish political organisations. This article, however, unearths the history that led to this development.

Another thing that makes Dalmatia unique is its position as an extensive source of diverse and valuable perspectives from Jews who lived under Italian occupation. These testimonies belong to three different categories: the written testimonies of the Jewish survivors of the Rab camp, members of the Rab battalion and Jewish medical staff, collected by and for the use of the Yugoslav Jewish Community between the mid-1950s and late 1960s, unused until now;Footnote ²⁶ oral testimonies from Holocaust survivors collected throughout the 1990s;Footnote ²⁷ and the collection of written testimonies published by the Jewish community in Belgrade between 2001 and 2011.Footnote ²⁸ These testimonies were collected, written and taped over the course of almost fifty years, and among my intentions was also to examine whether, how and to what extent the survivors present resistance and liberation in their own narratives in this period.

The timeframe and context in which these testimonies were taken or written is crucial, in line with Jovan Byford’s thesis that testimonies are ‘the cultural underpinnings of bearing witness’.Footnote ²⁹ Byford and other historians have underlined how Eastern European societies, including socialist Yugoslavia, did not differentiate between Jewish and other national and ethnic groups experiences and collective prosecution. According to this thesis, the state-supported ideas discouraged personal, emotional or defeatist reflections and only celebrated collective, anti-fascist, all-Yugoslav resistance to the Axis occupation, both local and foreign fascists and liberation of the country.Footnote ³⁰ In the case of Yugoslavia, the situation with testimonies is further complicated by the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s, which re-opened the debate surrounding Nazi, fascist and collaborators’ crimes, and especially Ustaša in the Independent State of Croatia.Footnote ³¹

I acknowledge these conclusions but I also believe the earliest group of testimonies, focused on the liberation on Rab, reflect the internal and Jewish-specific Holocaust memory culture in Yugoslavia that had existed since the early 1950s, as Emil Kerenji recognised and Jelena Subotić endorsed in her recent book.Footnote ³² This set of testimonies does not stray from what Subotić called ‘memory without ethnicity’ or the inclusion of Jewish-specific experience under the umbrella of Nazi and fascist crimes committed against all Yugoslav nations.Footnote ³³ Still, there are reasons why these testimonies stand out: either they were initiated by the Jewish community of Yugoslavia for the planned monograph about the liberation from Rab or they were self-initiated, as in the case of Salamon P. from Zenica (Bosnia).Footnote ³⁴ This allowed for the focus on the personal but also Jewish experience, and this group of attestations recognises and emphasises the Jewish perspective of the war and resistance, and historicises Jewish political organising. Finally, even if they reflect on NOP, these accounts do not merely rejoice in the celebration of general resistance but offer personal insights into the process of joining the resistance, Jewish inmates and comrades and nuanced reflections on the time spent with the partisans. The video testimonies from survivors in Dalmatia also accentuate similar themes and topics, and this includes both those that were filmed in Yugoslavia (or successor countries) and those abroad. This consistency in the survivors’ testimonies conveys their own belief that Jews did liberate themselves: through longer engagement in anti-fascist struggle, resistance despite persecution and awareness of the destruction of Jewish communities in their vicinity. Therefore, the thread that the Jewish resistance was part of a longer trajectory of Jewish politics in this area and this article is dedicated precisely to an unearthing of this history.

‘Ideologically Different, but Close’: Jewish Inter-War Political Ideologies and Organisations in Inter-War Yugoslavia

The Jewish community of Yugoslavia aimed to publish a volume about the Jewish battalion on Rab on the occasion of its twentieth anniversary.Footnote ³⁵ Despite the fact the book never saw the light of day, former resistance members assembled to discuss it. During one of these meetings, Ela V. (1922–1998) recommended that the publication should concentrate on tracing the organisation of Jews prior to their arrival at the Italian-organised concentration camp on Rab. This island has a distinct history as the Jewish and Yugoslav prisoners, predominantly Slovenian but also Croatian and Serbian, took control of the camp, disarmed the Italian forces and joined the Yugoslav partisans (Narodnooslobodilački pokret, NOP). Moreover, the island was a target for the sole organised liberation of a concentration camp with Jewish inmates during the Second World War. Ela V. lived through all of this on Rab, after escaping Sarajevo in 1941 through Mostar. She joined NOP along with numerous other women and men, taking on the role of a nurse from 1943 to 1945.Footnote ³⁶ Her firsthand experience led her to a pertinent conclusion – the Jews’ arrival in Rab in spring 1943 is just a piece of a larger historical puzzle. This narrative goes beyond detailing the political structure Jews formed while rounded up by Italian authorities in several camps in Dalmatia.Footnote ³⁷ It touches on the extensive pre-war Jewish political culture. Thus, I urge us to delve into the history of Jewish politics in pre-war Yugoslavia to contextualise and comprehend Jewish political responses to the Italian occupation, and to explore the Jewish-specific ways of organising in Dalmatia during the war.

Jews were not numerous in Dalmatia prior to the war. Nevertheless, this region offers a solid, comprehensive look at the Jewish resistance in the Adriatic due to three important factors. First, in the period just after the First World War, Jewish communities, and especially the one in Split, embraced newcomers from throughout the new Yugoslav state.Footnote ³⁸ Amidst this setting, kehilot saw their cultural, linguistic and political distinctions fade away, giving rise to social and political collaborations across communities. Second, many Central European Jews began arriving in this area after 1933, with their numbers increasing further following the start of the war in Yugoslavia in April 1941, as Yugoslav Jews also mainly sought to flee persecution in the Italian occupation zone. Finally, despite undergoing the same emancipation process, the Jews in the emerging Yugoslav state mainly communicated in Serbo-Croatian for their political and social affairs. This promoted integration not only between different kehilot but also within the dominant gentile setting.Footnote ³⁹ These three aspects together make the case for studying Jewish politics in Dalmatia as an amalgam of Jewish political action in the wider region.

About 75,000 Jews lived in the Yugoslav kingdom when the April war broke out at the advent of Axis occupation in April 1941. Jews, making up less than 1 per cent of the population, were scattered across different parts of the Yugoslav state, many with distinct cultural and religious customs, languages and social and political affiliations.Footnote ⁴⁰ Despite this diversity, Zionism emerged as the primary political choice. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, Zionism became a signifier a range of ideas, processes and movements: it could mean the active movement of Jewish nationalism with the aim of forming a Jewish state in Palestine, but over time it also came to signify the politics of Jewish nationalism or, even, (Jewish) politics in general.Footnote ⁴¹ Lastly, all three could figure at the same time. For instance, Ela V., who was raised in a Sephardi household in Sarajevo, recalled having a Keren Hayesod, a fund for the Yishuv, piggy bank positioned at the entrance of her home. However, she was not raised with Zionist beliefs and was not even a member of the left Zionist youth group, Hashomer Hatzair, which was at the time typical for Jewish youth, Sephardi and Ashkenazi alike. Rather, she belonged to a Sephardi-exclusive choir, La Lira, in Sarajevo.Footnote ⁴² Growing up in an atmosphere similar to Ela V.’s was more than common for middle class Jews.

There was a Yugoslav element to the inception of Zionism in this region. The first Zionist organisation, Bar Giora, organised at the Technical University in Vienna in 1902, was addressing Jews of the ‘South Slav lands’ or Jewish students from the Balkans.Footnote ⁴³ The organisers were primarily Jews from the Austro-Hungarian region of Croatia-Slavonia, but they were joined by the Jews from occupied Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia. Following the standard Zionist aspirations such as ‘awakening and strengthening Jewish national feeling’, revival of Hebrew as the national language, studies of Jewish history and so on, Bar Giora’s mission also included efforts to improve the relationship between Ashkenazim and Sephardim from this region.Footnote ⁴⁴ This ideological proclamation also led to the adoption of Serbo-Croatian as the language of Jewish politics in this part of the Balkans. It was a calculated and pragmatic choice. At the outset, Zionists, who were predominantly German speakers, realised that it would be difficult to have a common language with Sephardim, who were favouring their mother tongue djudeo or spanyol or the languages of the societies in which they lived, Bosnian and Serbian. In order to bridge these both ideological and practical issues, Zionists denounced German and Hungarian as languages of failed Jewish emancipation in Austro-Hungary and opted for the language of the South Slavic peoples as the language of the Zionist programme in the Balkans.Footnote ⁴⁵ These complex cultural changes shaped the political scene of Jews in the Yugoslav kingdom but allowed them to be Jews while also being Yugoslav.

In the end, the nuanced and pro-Yugoslav sentiment of Zionist positioning held little significance to the Yugoslav state in the inter-war period, which was very sensitive to all political activities. The state formally recognised and backed the central Zionist line, mirroring Serbia’s support of the Balfour Declaration in 1917.Footnote ⁴⁶ Despite the official support, Zionist circles were associated with ‘extreme Jewish circles’, while the key individuals among the Zionists in Yugoslavia were seen as supporters of ‘an extreme leftist organisation’.Footnote ⁴⁷ While the authorities were particularly suspicious towards masonry lodgers, both right and left Zionist organisations also attracted their attention equally. The right-wing organisation Betar, inspired by Jabotinsky, consisted of Zionists focused on colonisation, with little regard for class struggle, dedicated to establishing a Jewish state in Palestine and fighting antisemitism.Footnote ⁴⁸ Betar also operated in Yugoslavia, specifically in Zagreb, uniting Jews against antisemitism. Geza B., who was a Betar member in inter-war Zagreb, spoke about the presence of antisemitism in the Yugoslav state and asserted: ‘[…] if you were at all intelligent, you had to be political’.Footnote ⁴⁹ Even if Betar’s membership was not as significant in number, the state carefully followed their work. Generally speaking, the police’s interest in Jewish political circles appears to have mirrored the overall increase in political suppression in the state, particularly after the 1929 coup and into the 1930s.Footnote ⁵⁰

The left Zionist groups, comprising most of the political organisations, experienced identical treatment. Poale Zion (Workers of Zion; Poale Cion in Serbo-Croatian spelling) led the way among them as the organisation of Jewish workers active in Yugoslavia. The Poale Zion movement originated in the Russian empire, when in 1906 a group of Jewish workers disagreed with the abandonment by the Bund (General Jewish Labour Bund), the main Jewish workers’ organisation, of the Zionist project of building a Jewish state in Palestine.Footnote ⁵¹ Poale Zion was at the height of its popularity immediately after the First World War, when they simultaneously agitated for workers’ rights in the Jewish diaspora and supported the development of Yishuv.Footnote ⁵² In inter-war Vienna, membership in Poale Zion also implied secularism and offered Jewish youth a certain distance from the traditional background of their ancestors.Footnote ⁵³ In Yugoslavia, the local organisation followed a similar programme. Many of its members were involved with the banned Communist Party of Yugoslavia (Komunistička partija Jugoslavije, KPJ). For this reason, the 1925 anti-communist purges also had a detrimental impact on Poale Zion, weakening the organisation. Due to this, historians have grouped Poale Zion and other left Zionist organisations as closely linked with the KPJ.Footnote ⁵⁴

Still, Jewish left thought and methods of organising have left traces across the state, especially among youth. Numerous supporters of Poale Zion had their origins in Hashomer Hatzair (Guardians of Zion, or Hašomer Hacair in Serbo-Croatian transliteration). Dating back to 1916 Austro-Hungarian Galicia, this association was structured after the Polish Scouts. As a result, it mainly encouraged participation in sport, hiking and scouting to connect young Jews with nature, imbue them with a sense of responsibility and discipline and harden their physiques.Footnote ⁵⁵ On a global level, the organisation was dedicated to building kibbutzim in the Yishuv, and, for instance, its work resulted in the creation of Shaar Hamakim, a shared Yugoslav–Romanian kibbutz.Footnote ⁵⁶

Hashomer Hatzair considered itself a movement focused on education.Footnote ⁵⁷ The members usually joined at early age. Anica D., who participated in NOB 1943–4, for instance, became a member of Hashomer Hatzair in Sarajevo at the age of seven or eight in 1931/2 and made friends who were important to her throughout her life.Footnote ⁵⁸ Anica D. believed she became a dedicated Zionist with a desire to emigrate to Palestine already in her teens. When her father could not afford the necessary and costly certificate for emigration to British Palestine, she was significantly dispirited.Footnote ⁵⁹ Moreover, the organisation’s dual focus promoted socialisation and acquisition of practical skills for survival and work in kibbutz through organised youth camps. Throughout the year they were organised in units (kvutzot) and followed a leader (menachel). In this closely knit social setting, the youths were urged to excel in their studies and pursue additional education. The emphasis on fostering relationships and educating Jewish youth could be seen as what catapulted Hashomer Hatzair to become the most impactful political group, while also evading the government’s radar.

Aligning with the left facilitated engagement with broader political topics. For instance, progressive left literature was instrumental in shaping the political consciousness of the Hashomer Hatzair members. Anica D. remembered how the members were avid readers and always urged to interact with progressive literature.Footnote ⁶⁰ The central organ of Yugoslav Hashomer Hatzair booklet emphasised the value of reading and underlined that ‘[T]he one who reads good books has no time for worthless literature’.Footnote ⁶¹ This manual from 1932 also highlighted the significance of ‘Jewish belles lettres’ (jevrejska beletristika)Footnote ⁶² for every member (shomer). Anica D.’s menachel took on as his duty to introduce his kvutza to the life of Jews in the Soviet Union, and she particularly stressed her awareness of the Jewish colony in Birobidzhan. Armando Moreno, a member in Belgrade, stated that the majority of the Jewish progressive youth went through Hashomer Hatzair. In his opinion, the members of his kena (nest) were not merely formed in the spirit of supporting and developing Palestine. Rather, they were brought up with the ‘Marxist classics that the Jewish socialist youth recognised as their own ideological guideposts’.Footnote ⁶³ Salamon R., a member of Hashomer Hatzair in Sarajevo, has also mentioned that members shared progressive literature among themselves.Footnote ⁶⁴

Matatja, an important organisation directed towards Jewish workers, also offered political education in the same vein. Matatja thrived in 1926 Sarajevo after the purges that crippled Poale Zion. Initially, Matatja’s ideology aligned with the mainstream of Jewish political organisations of Zionist orientation.Footnote ⁶⁵ However, it ignited particular cultural and political dialogues among the Sephardim, especially prominent in Sarajevo in the late 1920s.Footnote ⁶⁶ The society’s main objective was to unite and educate Jewish workers or, in the words of devoted member Moni Finci (1914–1984), ‘[to] educate and culturally uplift the working youth and explain its [working youth’s] position in light of scientific socialism, or Marxism’. Matatja adopted analogous strategies to Hashomer Hatzair, directing its members towards reading. Finci recalled that he dedicated his time to ‘reading progressive literature, studying the basics of Marxism, the Jewish question and similar [topics]’.Footnote ⁶⁷ Matatja in Sarajevo embodied the merging of Jewish labour and progressive ideas.

The organisation’s initial focus was on addressing the late 1920s economic crisis, particularly the increasing unemployment.Footnote ⁶⁸ Additionally, they reacted to the rise of fascism in Yugoslavia and abroad. In 1936 Matatja put on a play Živi zid (The Living Wall) about Hitler’s regime, a move that attracted attention from the public, and from 1936 Matatja also suffered greatly from purges: its members ended up in prison or even died under unclear circumstances.Footnote ⁶⁹ Unlike Poale Zion and Hashomer Hatzair, which were involved in Jewish communal life in Sarajevo without advocating for Jewish political interests in Yugoslav society, Matatja was active in broader political circles that included non-Jews as well. Through their unique blend of Zionism, Sephardi-centred and progressive thought and openness to the wider society, the Jewish workers’ society in Sarajevo reshaped the Jewish political environment.Footnote ⁷⁰

It is therefore not surprising that some of its members, such as Moni Levi (1896–1986), were also affiliated with the Communist Party.Footnote ⁷¹ Historians have taken these exceptional cases as a rule and therefore proclaimed Matatja as merely a ‘cell of the Communist Party’.Footnote ⁷² On the other hand, Anica D. explained that the goal of Zionist youth was to leave for Palestine. She added: ‘We were formed in this classless environment, so to speak … KPJ was close. Ideologically different, but close’.Footnote ⁷³ This shared ground, however, did not mean that the work of all left Jewish organisations and active communists merged or even overlapped.

It is impossible to accurately quantify the involvement of Jews in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia because it was outlawed in 1921 and did not maintain detailed membership rosters.Footnote ⁷⁴ Jaša Romano aimed to compile a comprehensive list of all Jewish individuals involved with the resistance movement and the party. Compared to the minute size of the Jewish community in the country, the support the party gained was notable.Footnote ⁷⁵ However, while the party presented egalitarian, inclusive and defiantly anti-religious postulates, the Jewish press, publications, memoirs and other self-published texts, along with the survivors’ testimonies, paint a picture of a complex, internal Jewish conversation, connections and negotiations within and beyond the party organisation.

The Communist Party did not have a targeted programme for Jews and considered antisemitism as a foreign import. Consequently, there was no ideological stand that would make the KPJ a refuge for Jews as Jews prior to the war.Footnote ⁷⁶ The regional body of the KPJ in Dalmatia, however, openly and adamantly denounced the antisemitism of fascists and their collaborators in late summer 1941.Footnote ⁷⁷ As Emil Kerenji demonstrated, an important and unequivocal stand against the genocide of Jews had a rather ideological value and served as part of the party’s construction of the ‘brotherhood and unity’ of all nations and ethnicities that the communists were hoping to engage in their fight against fascists and in the building of a new society after the war.Footnote ⁷⁸

Still, communists found backing among politically engaged Jewish youth. Those who rejected Zionism, including groups on the left such as Hashomer Hatzair, did so deliberately. One of these was Sida S. Born in 1921 into an upper-class family with a father who owned an esteemed Elegant hat and accessories factory in Sarajevo, Sida testified that she was among the youngest members of her generation in Hashomer Hatzair in Sarajevo. Following her family’s move to Belgrade in 1934, she briefly became part of the movement there. She and her entire kvutza left Hashomer Hatzair to become involved with what she referred to as ‘the high school movement’ (srednjoškolski pokret). This was an undefined group faction of young leftists who led a series of protests in Belgrade in the wake of the proclamation of King Aleksandar’s dictatorship in January 1929. Instead of confronting the illegality of left politics head-on, students chose to protest in favour of university autonomy, against the rise of fascism and for peace.Footnote ⁷⁹ The movement gained traction among high school students in 1936–7, primarily due to the influence of university students sympathetic to communism. In early 1941, approximately 2,800 high school students were involved in the party, with 800–900 members of the communist youth (Savez komunističke omladine, SKOJ).Footnote ⁸⁰ Therefore, there was a broader shift of youth, which is also symptomatic of departure from Hashomer Hatzair, that was ideological or, in Sida S.’s words: ‘Simply, we were left-oriented, we were more internationalists than nationalists’.Footnote ⁸¹ Together with her sister Ina and their friends, Luna Koen and Belina Graziani, she actively participated in the protests. She watched as each of her friends was expelled from their high school in the heart of Belgrade. The youngest, Graziani, was sent to prison at the age of thirteen. Sida S. persisted in stirring things up at school, maintaining connections with individuals and continuing to ‘cultivate’ young girls, in her own words.

While not everyone was involved in leftist groups, a significant number of Jews knew someone involved with the KPJ. Sida S. had two sisters who were also engaged in the party’s work. Three of them, Danon sisters, may have been influenced by the fact that their cousin, Cadik Danon, was an active communist before them.Footnote ⁸² It would not be the only case of a family connection within the KPJ: Josif P.’s sister ‘was engaged in politics’ (bavila se politikom). Their home in Makarska, near Split, was used as a mail drop for correspondence from Spain during the height of the civil war in 1936.Footnote ⁸³ Salamon Pinto from Zenica, in central Bosnia, had a brother Hajim who was captured by Ustaša, a Croatian extreme nationalist group with antisemitic, anti-Serb and anti-Roma ideologies, which aligned with Nazis and took control over the Independent State of Croatia in April 1941.Footnote ⁸⁴ As a communist, Hajim was subjected to torture and transported to the death camp Jasenovac.Footnote ⁸⁵ Josip P. revealed that his cousin and Moni Levi were close friends, when the latter was already a known communist. Acting on Moni Levi’s suggestion, Josip decided to leave Derventa and head to Split, which was under Italian control.Footnote ⁸⁶ Personal connections were pivotal in shaping the decisions taken at the onset of the war.

As showcased, making up less than 1 per cent of the Yugoslav population did not hinder Jews’ political activism. Most politically active Jews in Yugoslavia encountered similar difficulties. On the one hand, the state was suspicious and enforced a surveillance system on Jewish nationals, especially those affiliated with Zionist groups, as well as progressive youth. On the other hand, Jewish individuals involved in in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia experienced the same mistreatment as other members of the Party. As a result, the top two political factions for Jews in inter-war Yugoslavia demanded unwavering allegiance and ultimately become a threat to Jews. This precarious political situation fostered networks of politically active individuals, underground organisations and different social structures that offered relief, support and means of resistance during the war.

‘United Rhythm against Violence’: Resistance to Fascist Occupation in Dalmatia, 1941–3

South/southwest: this was the route many Jews from Yugoslavia took after the unannounced attack on 6 April 1941 and the subsequent occupation of Yugoslavia by Axis powers. Aleksandar Demajo, together with his father, left Belgrade for Greece, but the Bulgarian occupation prevented them from reaching their destination. They instead turned east, towards Bosnia, on their way to Montenegro, occupied by Italian forces. Aleksandar L., also from Belgrade, was also aware that Albania or Dalmatia were the best options for immediate shelter.Footnote ⁸⁷ Already in the first months of the war in the Balkans, the Adriatic was a known as a refuge.

As Spartaco Capogreco pointed out, Jewish survival in Dalmatia would not have been possible outside the complex geopolitical situation of this region. Namely, the conflicts between the Ustaša and Italian fascists and Mussolini’s attempts to gain leverage in his complicated relationship with Nazi Germany.Footnote ⁸⁸ Still, all Axis powers and their collaborators were meticulous in application of their racist policies: in Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH), they introduced restrictive policies targeting Serbs, Jews and Sinti Roma; in occupied Serbia the main enemies were Jews and Sinti Roma.Footnote ⁸⁹ In contrast to other Axis powers, Italian occupation policies towards Jews were often a reaction, ‘a bargaining tool’ Rome used to discuss its own political status with Nazi Germany.Footnote ⁹⁰ This constant negotiation of Jews’ position in the Italian-occupied territories opened space for the mobilisation of locals and refugees in Dalmatia by early summer 1941.

Building on kehilot and social organisations, the history of Jewish resistance in Dalmatia in fact starts with the arrival of Jewish refugees from Central Europe in the early 1930s. Jewish refugees from Germany arrived in the Yugoslav kingdom starting in 1933. However, it was only after the Nazi occupation of Austria in 1938 that they sought to establish a specific communal organisation to help with their support and immigration. During this time, a considerable number of refugees were welcomed in Adriatic ports, particularly Split (Spalato) and Dubrovnik (Ragusa).Footnote ⁹¹^, Footnote ⁹² These cities were attractive to Jews from Central Europe because they offered the opportunity for further emigration and also because of their well-established Jewish communities. This is one of the main reasons why Split and Dubrovnik were so crucial for political mobilisation compared to two neighbouring Italian provinces, Zadar (Zara) and Kotor (Cattaro).Footnote ⁹³

On the eve of the occupation, the solidarity networks were raised on another level. Dalmatia had one of the most porous borders, making it easier to pass through with false documents or bribes.Footnote ⁹⁴ In response to the arrival of refugees, Dubrovnik’s kehila created a social fund and asked each member of the community for a donation.Footnote ⁹⁵ By the summer of 1941, Split, a city with a population of around 40,000,Footnote ⁹⁶ received 8,000 exiles, with 3,000 being Jews.Footnote ⁹⁷ Despite the Jewish community’s small size of 300 members, they were dedicated to aiding those in need. They leveraged existing organisations like the youth group Jarden and established the Jewish Emigration Board (Židovski izbjeglički odbor). The Board grew from the existing communal associations and well-connected individuals from the inter-war period until autumn 1943, when the Nazis occupied former Italian territories in Dalmatia.

Since the late 1920s, Split’s Jewish community has maintained close contact with the

first Italian organisation that provided help for Jews aiming to emigrate to Palestine in the 1920s, Italian Committee for Assistance to Jewish Emigrants (Comitato Italiano di Assistenza agli Emigrant Ebrei).Footnote ⁹⁸ In December 1939, Mussolini disbanded the committee and the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, the umbrella organisation of Italian Jewry. In response, they formed Delegazione Assistenza Emigranti e Profughi Ebrei, shortened to Delasem, in November 1939. Delasem became the primary support system for Italian Jews, Jews in the Italian-occupied territories and finally the entire Mediterranean until September 1943 and the Nazi occupation of Italy.

Split’s Jewish Refugee Board and Delasem shared a similar structure. Both operated within their Jewish communities and were overseen by their representatives. Viktor Morpurgo served as the president of the community in Split while Velio Valdobra was the vice president of the Unione ebraicha. They offered administrative and legal assistance in obtaining emigration documents, provided financial aid to those in greatest need and coordinated relief funds and social and cultural activities. Moreover, these humanitarian organisations carried on with their work as international charity entities, in a manner reminiscent of pre-modern Jewish charitable organisations.Footnote ⁹⁹

The Board’s significance only grew after the occupation of Yugoslavia and annexation of Dalmatia to the Kingdom of Italy in April 1941. At this point, the Jewish community in Split diligently assisted the continuously growing number of Jewish refugees in the town, its vicinity and ultimately all Italian-occupied territories between Fiume and Dubrovnik. The type of the assistance the Board and community in Split provided was twofold. First, the communal organs offered and organised relief in the form of help with immigration, food donations and accommodation. In Split, refugees slept in the office space of the community.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ Furthermore, they supplied a designated living allowance, supported by international Jewish relief groups such as the American Jewish Distribution Committee and HICEM, and dispersed through Delasem. Additionally, the Board often provided information about refugees’ family members who stayed behindFootnote ¹⁰¹ and also organised transport of children to mainland Italy.Footnote ¹⁰²

Second, the community informally provided guidance to refugees on how they could enhance their situation. Viktor Morpurgo was known for his relentless work for the aid of refugees; as the head of both the Jewish community and the Board, he also received audiences. Josip P. testified on his two meetings with Morpurgo; during the first he was advised to discard his personal documents and IDs and apply for the Italian ID (carta d’identità) as a Jewish immigrant.Footnote ¹⁰³ All in all, the Board’s actions were clandestine, a common criterion for resistance, even if they relied primarily on dogmatic adherence to the law and apolitical behaviour. This reflected the Board’s aim ‘to prevail, with an adaption, not revolt’, in line with Poznanski’s concept of ‘humanitarian resistance’.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ Still, the chair of the Board and the president of the community were against joining the resistance movement, which we learn from Josip P.’s testimony.

Josip P. showcases the options available to refugees in Split. He escaped the Ustaša terror in Derventa (today Bosnia and Herzegovina) in late spring 1941 and reached Split. Upon his arrival he did not apply for the allowance administered through the Jewish community as he intended to find work. Even though the refugees did not have the right to work, he managed to develop a small enterprise, selling spices such as paprika and pepper door to door.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ Morpurgo still advised Josip P. to accept the financial support and expressed his fear that Pesah could come under the influence of communists in the city.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ There was not much Morpurgo could do – Split was already a stronghold of the Communist Party and it attracted youth, locals and refugees alike.

Indeed, Split was a major centre for Communist Party activism against the fascist occupiers, with a focus on the youth branch (Federation of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia, SKOJ). Dalmatia was the centre of the Party’s work – in the late 1920s, out of 1,400 registered SKOJ members in the whole of Yugoslavia, over half were active in Dalmatia.Footnote ¹⁰⁷ Josip Papo, born in neighbouring Makarska in 1923, recalled that his first contact with the ‘progressive youth’ was in Split.Footnote ¹⁰⁸

Despite the fact that the state had officially banned the Communist Party in 1929, the party had a strong presence in Dalmatia. Both international politics and internal affairs fostered its growth. The former came through the looming threat of Italian occupation and was intensified after the Nettuno conventions in 1925, which gave Italian commercial interests a privileged position in Yugoslavia. Finally, as a town of port, construction and manual workers, the Communist Party had a natural seat in Split. Dalmatia had a strong, almost independent party centre in the Regional Committee for Dalmatia (Pokrajinski komitet za Dalmaciju), often in conflict with the central leadership throughout the 1930s.Footnote ¹⁰⁹ In December 1934, the party counted 300 members in Dalmatia.Footnote ¹¹⁰ Mostly workers, the supporters were also agile during crucial moments, and the party has successfully organised or supported a series of strikes in Dalmatia, reaching its pre-war peak in the general strikes in Split in December 1939 and October 1940. Besides opposing the high cost of living, the protests were also a public outcry against exporting food to fascist states, effectively supporting those countries. Following the signing of the treaty between the Yugoslav government and the Axis powers on 25 March 1941, protests erupted in Split and all major cities in the country.Footnote ¹¹¹ Already in April 1941,Footnote ¹¹² months before the general uprising (which started only after 21 June), the local party’s bodies secretly organised military preparations in private flats, cellars or vineyards around Split and finally formed the First Split Fighting Unit (Prvi splitski borbeni odred). Moreover, they readied weapons and food provisions for the imminent military rebellion and coordinated minor operations like planning assaults on local fascists. Alongside preparations for the uprising, the party organised People’s Aid (Narodna pomoć) to gather contributions for families impacted by fascism.Footnote ¹¹³ Cadik Danon summarised it by saying: ‘In 1941, Split breathed in a unison rhythm against aggression’ (‘Te 1941. Split je disao jedinstvenim ritmom protiv nasilja’).Footnote ¹¹⁴

This setting brought out politically active Jews. Local Jews were the trailblazers in organising: as per the accounts of survivors, it was reported that Zionist youth, particularly members of Hašomer Hacair, participated in illegal activities.Footnote ¹¹⁵ Among Split’s Jews active in the organisation of resistance were Vili Švarc-Šimunov, Aron M. Danon and Izidor A. Finci. Among the organisers of the resistance were old party members who were sent to the area from Croatia or Bosnia and Herzegovina, such as Andrija Remenji, Pavle Pap, a member of the Central Committee who arrived in Split in August 1941, Leo Geršković, who led illegal political courses for communist youth (SKOJ) and edited Naš Život, Josip-Pepo Polak from Zagreb and Eli Finci from Sarajevo. The party members who made it to Split from NDH included Lavoslav Kraus from Osijek, Lea Remenji-Pinto and Mile Ljubičić from Zagreb, Milan and Paula Zon from Sarajevo, Avram J. Altarac from Travnik and Bukica Levi from Belgrade.Footnote ¹¹⁶

The integration of Jewish refugees into the resistance in Dalmatia happened swiftly, even if the party members complained that refugees in general were ‘passive, peaceful and even compromise-ready’ towards the Italian occupiers.Footnote ¹¹⁷ Party intermediaries reached out to individuals, leading to the expansion of the resistance network. The intermediaries could be non-Jewish but, more often than not, were Jewish: Sara S., upon her arrival to Kaštel Lukšić (19 km from Split), got in touch with the resistance through her cousin Rea Ašerović, who was part of the movement alongside her boyfriend.Footnote ¹¹⁸ Josip P. started working for the resistance under a certain Božidar Ćulić and continued working under Josif Elazar, a Jew from Doboj (Bosnia). Initially, the newcomers propagated the resistance’s messages. Josip P. was tasked with responding to the occupier graffiti proclaiming their triumph with vinceremo (we will win) with vedremo (we will see).Footnote ¹¹⁹ His other duties included collecting donations and obtaining intel. For instance, working as a travelling salesman for a liqueur factory, Josip P. reported on military structures and warehouses. The goal was merely to highlight the spiritual opposition, inform the city residents about the resistance and gather intelligence about the occupiers.

Official members of the KPJ had more dangerous tasks. Andrija Remenji and his wife Lea Remenji-Pinto were involved in a bomb attack on a group of carabinieri.Footnote ¹²⁰ Meanwhile, Sarajevo publicist Eli Finci clandestinely edited an anti-occupation journal called Naš izvještaj (Our Report). The printing press was in the flat of the communal cantor Cadik Danon. He also took on the responsibility of nursing a wounded partisan soldier back to health in the same flat, putting his own life at risk for several weeks. Another member of the Jewish community, Dr Silvio Altaras, offered medical help. Danon facilitated the partisan in obtaining an ID card through the Jewish community for medical treatment at a hospital.Footnote ¹²¹ His final directive before being captured was to disseminate information about NOB in Dalmatia.Footnote ¹²² Even without official involvement, it is evident that the kehilot leader was informed about the level of resistance among the members.

The dangers of engaging with the resistance cannot be overstated. Due to the deep-rooted bias against the SlavsFootnote ¹²³ and the common belief that only a firm hand could govern them,Footnote ¹²⁴ it is not surprising that Italians quickly implemented harsh penalties for anyone linked to anti-fascist activities during their early rule. As the anti-fascist rebellion kicked off on 22 June 1941, right after the German operation Barbarossa commenced against the Soviet Union, the fascists exploited the timing of both events to rationalise harsh actions against the rebels labelled as communists.Footnote ¹²⁵ Initially, the military conducted arrests of individuals, followed by groups. By mid-August 1941, the scale of the arrests was so vast that all Dalmatian prisons were overcrowded. Captured rebels were tortured in the course of interrogations and then detained in prisons where they waited to be transferred to internment camps or the so-called free confinement (libero confino).Footnote ¹²⁶ C. Cadik Danon recounted the recurring beatings and psychological torment he endured following his apprehension in late April 1942. In his words: ‘They [Italians] threatened to deport me to Croatia and hand me over to Ustasha if I didn’t confess to the accusations against me’.Footnote ¹²⁷

Another method used to control Jewish refugees was limiting their movement; by the summer of 1941, they were required to remain in camps or confino libero along the Adriatic coast.Footnote ¹²⁸ Some refugees were able to make their way to Italy proper, through connections or paying bribes. There, they normally lived in confino libero.Footnote ¹²⁹ In Split specifically, after the uprising began, the Italian administration claimed there was a shortage of accommodation and food and interned foreign Jews on nearby islands in August and September 1941.Footnote ¹³⁰ Approximately 700 individuals were sent to Korčula (Curzola), 400 to the town of Korčula and 300 to Vela Luka. The island became part of the Italian kingdom through annexation. Additionally, Italians set up camps on islands such as Brač (Brazza) (in villages Supetar, Milna, Nerežić and Sumartin), Mljet and Hvar, all of which were considered NDH territories but under Italian military control. Dubrovnik saw a similar situation with the Italian administration refugees from Split. However, in contrast to Split, where some refugees remained until the summer of 1943, Dubrovnik served as a brief stop for most exiles. The majority of them remained in the town until the start of November 1941, at which point they were deported and placed in concentration camps on the islands of Lopud, Kupari and Gruž.Footnote ¹³¹ A form of social organisation existed in all camps with an aim to offer a cultural and educational programme. In Kupari, the internees took the initiative to establish the first four grades of an elementary school and a kindergarten.Footnote ¹³² At the same time, political organisations were starting to emerge within the camps.

Islands rarely had permanent Jewish residents. Korčula, located south-west of Split, is an exception to the rule. Hachshara, a Jewish fishing training school, was established in the town of Vela Luka, where it accommodated thirty to forty young men and women until the war. During the occupation and breakup of Yugoslavia, these young people were left stranded on the island under Axis control.Footnote ¹³³ Among them were Central European Jews who had fled Nazi persecution in the 1930s, hoping to find a sanctuary.Footnote ¹³⁴ They were in luck, at least at first, since Korčula was annexed to the Italian kingdom as Curzola, while other mid-Dalmatian islands were under NDH civil and Italian military rule. The small town of Vela Luka, with approximately 4,000 inhabitants, became home to a growing group of Yugoslav Jewish youth and refugees.

Vela Luka became a sort of a hub for Jewish social and political activities. Majer A. (Sarajevo, 1915–?) recalled that it was Kučo Alkalaj, a Jew in a good standing from Belgrade, who proposed to the authorities to confine Jews on the island and who rented a hotel for their housing. They established a cooperative community (zadruga) where they resided, managed meal preparation and food distribution and also socialised as a group. Meanwhile, the island served as a safe haven for those evading the Italian authorities for their political views, such as Enriko J. (1924–2003), who escaped Split to avoid a life sentence he received for participating in demonstrations against Mussolini in late June 1941.Footnote ¹³⁵

Not only did this group of several hundred refugees establish a communal social and cultural life, but they also formed a political community. However, after Kučo Alkalaj’s family and other wealthier families departed for Italy in 1941, the hotel was closed down and the remaining residents had to stay with local families. With the Italian state only providing 20 g of bread daily, they had to establish a menza (canteen) to ensure their survival. In Italian camps, there was a widespread practice of organising food preparation and enhancing provisions. Chiara Renzo highlighted the efforts of philanthropic groups, both Italian and international, that focused on improving living conditions in camps by ensuring a better food supply.Footnote ¹³⁶ This emphasis on food supplies was especially crucial in island camps where options were limited. In Vela Luka, where the social standing of refugees was inferior to that of their brethren in neighbouring towns on Korčula, they organised food distribution in the former Hachshara house. On Lopud, one of the two camps formed in the vicinity of Dubrovnik, Anica D. recalled that wealthier Jews made larger donations to the canteen.Footnote ¹³⁷

Although menza may seem like just one among many charitable organisations, the tradition of menza had deep political roots.Footnote ¹³⁸ Throughout Central Europe, once Jews gained access to universities, organising their meals became a way to foster religious habits and social cohesion. Furthermore, in the 1920s, menza evolved into a political battleground where various political factions vied for control. For example, in 1931 in Zagreb, a group of students with left-leaning ideologies assumed leadership from Zionists.Footnote ¹³⁹

In Dalmatia, during the war, menza also served for political mobilisation. It provided representation in the face of Italian authorities. In Vela Luka, menza representative Hajnrih Levi forged ties with the carabinier, thanks to his proficient Italian. Nevertheless, Majer A. asserts that Levi’s trustworthiness diminished once he began abusing his authority, particularly with regard to distributing food supplies. This incited three youth members of the canteen, Moca A., Albert A. and Majer A., to speak out against his leadership. Italian authorities quickly intervened after Hajrih Levi portrayed the situation as not just a personal attack but also a rebellion, with the aim of having the defiant young people detained. As a result, he no longer had the camp’s backing, allowing Majer A. to step in as the new representative.Footnote ¹⁴⁰ In that, membership of the menza implied structure, cooperation and solidarity, and it was indeed a political organisation.

Working in the communal kitchen and for the menza allowed individuals in the camps to establish connections outside the camp environment. In the camp Kupari near Dubrovnik, Salamon Pinto was part of a kitchen crew that included three other prisoners. He was responsible for bringing food to a Czech couple, electrician Kabliček and his wife. Through their daily interaction, Pinto discovered that both of them held strong anti-fascist views. Moreover, he learned that they had a radio that they used to listen to the Voice of America and the BBC. Kabliček’s wife began jotting down the news, which Pinto then carried to the camp in repurposed food containers.Footnote ¹⁴¹ This example shows how menza could blur the boundaries between social and humanitarian resistance and political; it demonstrates how organisations could spark resistance when conditions permitted.

Joining the military resistance led by the Communist Party was another way Jews in occupied Dalmatia organised themselves. Vela Luka again serves as the prime example of Jewish refugees reaching out to partisans. As mentioned, in summer 1941, Enriko J. fled to the town to escape the death penalty. His friend, Zvonko Letica, son of a well-known dentist and hotelier, provided assistance.Footnote ¹⁴² Moreover, Letica was part of a group of young activists who raided the Italian military Forteca (Fortezza) in 1941, stealing valuable equipment that was later given to partisan units on the island.Footnote ¹⁴³ Aleksandar Mošić wrote about fifteen members of Hachshara, the Jewish fishing school, and a certain number of local youths who, in light of the spreading of the anti-fascist resistance, went ‘to the woods’, an expression used to signify entering the armed resistance.Footnote ¹⁴⁴ This attempt was followed by a reprisal from the Italian authorities, who arrested a group of island youth in March and in June shot thirteen of them, including three Jews: Leon Romano, Isak Kabiljo and Avram Romano. Moreover, Sergeant Roncorni (Ronkorni) took other Jews as hostages in order to prevent more from joining the partisans.Footnote ¹⁴⁵

Ultimately, the emergence of KPJ cells in camps reflects a significant political and ideological alignment that proved crucial during the final phase of Italian occupation. There was no sudden recruitment push for the party; instead, existing members were gradually assessed and incorporated into the existing party cells. Ewald (Branko) Erlih, a mining engineer from Mostar,Footnote ¹⁴⁶ and Viktor, a tailor from Dubrovnik, teamed up to form a party unit in Kupari. David Dača Kabiljo, who was also held in Kupari, recalled how Erlih came up to him after fostering acquaintance for some time. Their everyday chats frequently revolved around the partisan clashes in the Montenegrin hills, so close by that the sound of cannon fire could be heard in their vicinity. On one occasion, Erlih asked Kabiljo about his opinion on ‘active struggle against the occupier and domestic traitor’ and whether he supported the resistance movement.Footnote ¹⁴⁷ Kabiljo’s avowal of his anti-fascist beliefs led to his inclusion in the party. Their collaboration continued to strengthen during the war, with Erlih, Hajon and Kabiljo taking charge of the Jewish battalion on Rab in the early autumn of 1943, and later engaging in the NOB.Footnote ¹⁴⁸ At the camp on Rab, Jews from Dalmatian camps encountered Jews who resided in other Italian-occupied areas. They all arrived in November 1942. Among them were Jews who sought shelter in the Croatian littoral, specifically in locations like Crikvenica, Kraljevica, Novi Vinodolski, Senj, Skrad and Moravice.Footnote ¹⁴⁹

The camp in the small town in Kampor on Rab had already been running for a year by the time the Jews from Dalmatia arrived. Established in March 1942, the camp was originally intended for families of Slovene resistance fighters.Footnote ¹⁵⁰ It exemplified the brutality of the fascist regime. During the period from spring 1942 to autumn 1943, a total of 10,000 were interned, consisting of 7,541 Slovenians and Croatians and others, as well as 2,761 Jews.Footnote ¹⁵¹ Thousands of people, women, children and elderly included, lived in inhumane conditions: lack of food, drinking water and hygiene facilities, all of which supported the spread of untreated infectious illnesses and finally caused the death of every ninth prisoner, in total around 1,300 people.Footnote ¹⁵² The extreme conditions did not impede but rather encouraged political organisation among inmates, centred mainly on the Communist Party and Oslobodilna Fronta, a Slovenian anti-fascist organisation. In September 1942, inmates Jože Jurančić, Alojz Kukovec, Janez Lajevec and others formed a committee of the Communist Party of Slovenia. In January 1943, they also formed a committee of Oslobodilna Fronta.Footnote ¹⁵³ Their objective was to awaken and bolster the spirit of resistance and be ready to overthrow the fascist regime at the first opportunity.Footnote ¹⁵⁴

Jews were excluded from this planned upheaval. Upon their arrival to Kampor in November 1942, the Italian authorities placed them in a secluded camp and banned all communication between the Slovenian and Croatian camp and the Jewish camp. Once again, menza proved to be essential; Salamon Pinto only learned about the Slovenian camp when he left the Jewish camp to collect food.Footnote ¹⁵⁵ In addition, Jews established their own political groups soon after the occupation started: in Kraljevica they even had a Communist Party organisation while other camps had contact with NOP. Due to the slight restrictions, Jews finally had increased freedom of movement, allowing them to acquire a typewriter, radio and a basic copying machine.Footnote ¹⁵⁶ Following Mussolini’s downfall on 8 September, Jewish, Slovenian and Croatian inmates collaborated to assume control of the camp. The evacuation of all inmates from Rab began on 10 September, led by the KPJ leadership – the most significant effort to save Jews during the Second World War. Approximately 2,000 Jews were moved to inland Croatia, with many of them participating in the armed resistance, first as members of the Jewish battalion formed in Kampor immediately after the takeover and soon after in different units of the People’s Liberation ArmyFootnote ¹⁵⁷ – as was widely recognised and celebrated in the communal circles and at the state level during the communist era. Out of the 500 Jews who chose to stay on the island, around 300 were able to escape to mainland Italy and continue with their emigration, while the remaining 200 were captured by the German army upon their arrival in March 1944. The greater part of the latter group lost their lives in the concentration camp Birkenau.Footnote ¹⁵⁸

Conclusion

It was an ongoing struggle – this is the gist of the seemingly casual remarks of the wartime but also inter-war Jewish political activists and fighters in the anti-fascist movement, such as Viktor Hajon and Ela V. However, they demonstrate an understanding of the historical roots of Jewish struggle that led to their political engagement and, ultimately, their ‘self-liberation’, as Geza B. put it. The aim was to understand Jewish political involvement during the Second World War in relation to the political culture on a general or European, state or Yugoslav, or communal (kehilot) and local level in the first half of the twentieth century. The analysis of the sources indicated that Jews who resisted the fascist and Axis alliance were often involved in all three dimensions of Jewish political engagement. This participation brought about awareness and connections, and eventually established a comprehensive Jewish network that facilitated their survival.

The significance and essential nature of this social network cannot be overstated. The article highlights how the Jewish arrivals in Italian-occupied Dalmatia played a vital role in forming a safety net for the most vulnerable Jewish refugees. Personal ties, especially within families, were crucial, along with general solidarity. Institutions born out of pure necessity, like the menza, evolved into crucial pillars of organisation and liberation.

Yet, it remains highly relevant to mention the genesis of ideological positioning that influenced the direction of Jewish politics. Participation in Jewish political organisation from a young age was a means of belonging and constructing a Jewish-specific political environment in the Yugoslav kingdom, as well as in other parts of Europe. Across the continent, state and region, Hashomer Hatzair and similar youth organisations educated generations of Jews and influenced political choices. In some cases like Sida S.’s, this resulted in their involvement in not exclusively Jewish political circles, and the left movement, politically educated Jewish youth were accustomed to state surveillance and exclusion from the social sphere. The Yugoslav regime strictly marginalised communists and Zionists, as well as Jewish associations such as Matatja. This shared experience only fostered cooperation between different Jewish and progressive movements in Yugoslavia. Furthermore, even those Jews who chose not to be a part of communist youth organisations grasped the relationship between all-Jewish positioning and communist internationalism before the war. Amidst these conditions that promoted cooperation, the two forged a seamless alliance that was ideologically supported by the KPJ’s formal recognition of the Jewish-specific position in the war. It did not just stay in words; the communist-led partisans in Dalmatia incorporated the liberation of Jews in their war aims. For decades, this coalition appeared to be born out of desperation, but this article reveals how Jewish political decisions over generations in the Yugoslav regions shaped this successful and inclusive history.

Footnotes

¹ Daniel Carpi, ‘The Rescue of Jews in the Italian Zone of Occupied Croatia’, reprint from: Rescue Attempts during the Holocaust: Proceedings of the 2nd Yad Vashem Intl. Hist. Conf. – Apr. 1974 (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1974), 465–527. Carpi describes in detail the articles that came out in Italian newspapers already in 1944, just months after the liberation of Rome, followed by Jacques Sabille’s article in 1951.

² The interest in this question spiked in the late 1980s and early 1990s: Carol Rittner, The Courage to Care: Rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust (New York: New York University Press, 1986); Ivo Hertzer, ed., The Italian Refuge: The Rescue of Jews during the Holocaust (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1989); Jonathan Steinberg, All or Nothing: The Axis and the Holocaust, 1941–1943 (London: Routledge, 1990); Menachem Shelah, Un debito di gratitudine. Storia dei rapport tra l’Esercto Italiano e gli Ebrei in Dalmazia (1941–1943) (Rome: Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito, 1991); István Deák, ‘Holocaust Heroes’, The New York Review, 5 November 1992, accessed 30 November 2023, https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1992/11/05/holocaust-heroes/. Both Hertzer and Shelah were witnesses of Italian occupation. There has since also been an attempt to point out the role of the Croatian population in the salvation of Jews on their way to the Italian occupation zone and after the capitulation of Italy in September 1943: Esther Gitman, When Courage Prevailed: The Rescue and Survival of Jews in the Independent State of Croatia (St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2011), 27–8. Even recently published books take Italian benevolence or the Italian military leadership’s benevolence as a fact: Halik Kochanski, Resistance: The Underground War against Hitler, 1939–1945 (New York: Liveright Publishing Company, 2022), 418.

³ Emil Kerenji, ‘“Your Salvation Is the Struggle Against Fascism”: Yugoslav Communist and the Rescue of Jews, 1941–1945’, Contemporary European History 25, no. 1 (2016): 57–74.

⁴ Jaša Romano, Jevreji Jugoslavije, 1941–1945: Žrvte genocida i učenici Narodnooslobodilačkog rata (Belgrade: Savez Jevrejskih opština Jugoslavije, 1980).

⁵ We still do not have precise data on the number of local Jews and Jewish refugees residing in the Italian occupation zone nor this Adriatic area during the war; various numbers circulate the literature. Jonathan Steinberg attested 50,000 Jews that Italians saved from death in Nazi hands. Another estimate claims that Italians in general saved about 80 per cent of the 40,000 non-Italian Jews who were living under Italian protection, as they did of Jews who were Italian citizens. Klaus Voigt, estimating from sources and literature, points to the number of 10,000 Jewish refugees in all Italian occupation zones in Europe. When it comes to Dalmatia and the entire Italian occupation zone of the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Jaša Romano estimated, and most likely overstated, the number of Jewish survivors in the Italian occupation zone in this area at 3,700. Davide Rodogno downsized this to 2,500. Still, this article deals with Jewish agency during the war and relies on Jaša Romano’s estimate of 4,572 Yugoslav Jews entering the resistance movement (People’s Liberation Movement or NOP), out of whom around 2,700 Jews were under the Italian occupation zone in what was previously known as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Michele Sarfatti holds that there were between 2,640 and 2,740 Jews on Rab in the later summer of 1943. Steinberg, All or Nothing, 5; Jaša Romano, ‘Jevreji u logoru na Rabu i njihovo uključivanje u Narodnooslobodilački rat’, Zbornik 2: Studije i građa o učešću Jevreja u Narodnooslobodilačkom ratu (1972): 17–20; Davide Rodogno, ‘Italiani brava gente? Fascist Italy’s Policy toward the Jews in the Balkans, April 1941–July 1943’, European History Quarterly 35 (2005), 223–4. Michele Sarfatti, I confini di una persecuzione: Il fascismo e gli ebrei fuori d’Italia (1938–1943) (Rome: Viella Editrice, 2023) 94.

⁶ Geza B. HTV 2878, 1994.

⁷ Evgeny Finkel, Ordinary Jews: Choice and Survival during the Holocaust (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017), 172–6. He builds on Doug McAdam, ‘Recruitment to High-Risk Activism: The Case of Freedom Summer’, American Journal of Sociology 92, no. 1 (1986): 64–90.

⁸ See also on Jewish participation in the Spanish civil war: Marko Perić, ‘Jevreji iz Jugoslavije – Španski borci’, Zbornik 3: Studije i građa o učešću Jevreja u Narodnooslobodilačkom ratu (Belgrade: Jevrejski istorijski muzej, 1975), 1–43; Vlajko Begović, ‘Učešće u pomoći Španskoj republici’, in Sarajevo u revoluciji I, ed. Nisam Albahari et al. (Sarajevo: Istorijski arhiv Sarajevo, 1976), 197–99; Željka Oparnica, ‘Sephardi Politics in the Balkans, 1900–1940’ (PhD diss., Birkbeck, University of London, 2022), 94–131.

⁹ This includes religious and non-religious, cultural and educational. See for example: Richard Middleton-Kaplan, ‘The Myth of Jewish Passivity’, in Jewish Resistance against the Nazis, ed. Patrick Henry (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press, 2014): 3–26; James M. Glass, Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust: Moral Uses of Violence and Will (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004); but also Primo Levi, If This Is a Man (New York: Touchstone, 1968).

¹⁰ See for example: Martin Gilbert, The Holocaust: The Jewish Tragedy (New York: Collins, 1986).

¹¹ Renée Poznanski, ‘Rescue of the Jews and the Resistance in France: From History to Historiography’, French Politics, Culture & Society (Summer 2012): 15–18, 27.

¹² Jeff Burzlaff, ‘Silence and Small Gestures: Jews and Non-Jews in the Netherlands’, Contemporary European History 32 (2023): 401–15.

¹³ Finkel, Ordinary Jews, 160.

¹⁴ Shmuel Krakowski, The War of the Doomed: Jewish Armed Resistance in Poland, 1942–1944 (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1984): 3–5.

¹⁵ Renée Poznanski, ‘Rescue of the Jews and the Resistance in France: From History to Historiography’, French Politics, Culture & Society Vol. 30, No. 2 (Summer 2012): 8–32.

¹⁶ Ariella Lang, ‘Resistance and Italian Jews in Wartime Italy’, in Jewish Resistance against the Nazis, ed. Patrick Henry (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2014), 138–60.

¹⁷ Steven Bowman, Jewish Resistance in Wartime Greece (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2006).

¹⁸ Finkel, Ordinary Jews.

¹⁹ Rachel L. Einwohner, Hope and Honor: Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022).

²⁰ Jozo Tomasevich, War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941–1945 (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002), 61–63; Dragovan Šepic, ‘Talijanska okupaciona politika u Dalmaciji (1941–1943)’, Putovi revolucije 1–2 (1963): 215; Davide Rodogno, Il nuovo ordine Mediterraneo. Le politiche di occupazione dell’Italia fascista in Europa 1940–1945 (Torino: Borlatti Boringhieri, 2014), 76, 80–2.

²¹ Stevan K. Pavlovich, Hitler’s New Disorder: The Second World War in Yugoslavia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 187–8.

²² Romano, Jevreji Jugoslavije, 282.

²³ Letter from Viktor Hajon to the Union of Jewish Communities, Belgrade (Savez jevrejskih opština, Beograd), Jevrejski istorijski muzej, Fond Holokaust, k 19-f.6-1/3674 (4 March 1955).

²⁴ Kerenji, ‘Your Salvation’, 63–73. Kerenji relies on Elvira Kohn’s diary from the camp on Rab: Diary of Elvira Kohn, RG 61.019 M, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives, Washington, DC. Imre Rochlitz also dedicated space in his memoir to describing the reluctance and discomfort of his experience in the National Liberation Movement: Imre Rochlitz, Accident of Fate. Personal Account, 1938–1948 (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2011).

²⁵ Kerenji, ‘Your Salvation’, 57.

²⁶ Information about the Rab battalion, JIM, Fond Holokaust, k19, f. 6–1.

²⁷ The oral testimonies come from the video archives USC Shoah Foundation (VHA), United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) and Video Archives (HVT).

²⁸ Mi smo preživeli… Jevreji o Holokaustu I–V, ed. Aleksandar Gaon et all (Belgrade: Jevrejski istorijski muzej/Savez jevrejskih opština Srbije, 2007–2011).

²⁹ Jovan Byford, ‘Remembering Jasenovac: Survivor Testimonies and the Cultural Dimension of Bearing Witness’, Holocaust and Genocide Studies 28, no. 1 (Spring 2014): 58. This is also in line with Annette Wieviorka’s work: Annette Wieviorka, The Era of the Witness (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006).

³⁰ Emil Kerenji, ‘Jewish Citizens of Socialist Yugoslavia: Politics of Jewish Identity in a Socialist State’ (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2008), 179–85; Jelena Subotić, Yellow Star, Red Star: Holocaust Remembrance after Communism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2019): 52–61.

³¹ Jaša Almuli (1918–2013) was a journalist and president of the Jewish Communities of Yugoslavia 1989–92. He became a member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in 1938 and participated in the NOP during the Second World War in Dalmatia. He conducted interviews with survivors from the territories of the Yugoslav kingdom for the USHMM and the Fortunoff Archive. Byford and other scholars have recently debated to what extent he was an apologist for the Serbian side during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s: Byford, ‘Remembering Jasenovac’, 68–72.

³² Kerenji, ‘Jewish Citizens of Socialist Yugoslavia’; Subotić, Yellow Star, Red Star, 58–63.

³³ Subotić, Yellow Star, Red Star, 55.

³⁴ Salamon Pinto’s report on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Rab battalion: Jevrejski istorijski muzej (JIM), Fond Holokaust, k 19, f. 6-1, 3672 (n.d.). The Jewish community in Sarajevo reports on the letter Pinto wrote to the Jewish community in Belgrade on 7 March 1970 about his wartime experiences; however Salamon Pinto died in Sarajevo on 7 March 1969.

³⁵ It seems that instead of this idea, Jaša Romano published an elaborated article on the Jewish camp and organisation of resistance in Kampor in anticipation of the thirtieth anniversary in 1973: Romano, ‘Jevreji u logoru na Rabu i njihovo uključivanje u Narodnooslobodilački rat’.

³⁶ Report from the meeting of members of the Jewish battalion on Rab, Zagreb, 14 June 1968, Jevrejski istorijski muzej (JIM), Fond Holokaust, k 19, f, 6-1, reg. br 3673.

³⁷ Duško Kečkemet, ‘Židovski sabirni logori na području pod talijanskom upravom’, in Antisemitizam, Holokaust, Antifašizam, ed. Ognjen Kraus (Zagreb: Židovska općina Zagreb, 1996), 120.

³⁸ Duško Kečkemet, Židovi u povijesti Splita (Split: Slobodna Dalmacija,1971), 167.

³⁹ On the importance of Serbo-Croatian for Jewish political culture in Yugoslavia: Željka Oparnica, ‘Serbo-Croatian as a Language of Sephardi Literature: The Cases of Isak Samokovlija and Jacques Confino’, European Journal of Jewish Studies 17 (2023): 38–60; Željka Oparnica, ‘Judeo-Spanish Pasts and Futures: The Question of Language in Sarajevo Sephardi Political Thought between 1900–1930’, in Minor Perspectives on Modernity beyond Europe: An Encounter between Jewish Studies and Postcolonial Thought, ed. Yael Attia, Jonathan Hirsch and Kathleen Samson (Berlin: Nomos, 2023), 29–52.

⁴⁰ On Sarajevo, Zagreb and Belgrade: Harriet Friedenreich, Jews of Yugoslavia: A Quest for Community (Skokie: Varda Press, 1979). On Zagreb: Ognjen Kraus, ed., Dva stoljeća povijesti i culture Židova u Zagrebu (Zagreb: Židovska općina Zagreb, 1998).

⁴¹ On the beginnings of Zionism in the Balkans: Oparnica, ‘Sephardi Politics in the Balkans’; Kerenji, ‘Jewish Citizens of Socialist Yugoslavia’, 47–95. Ljiljana Dobrovšak, ‘Prva konferencija Zemaljskog udruženja cionista južnoslavenskih krajeva Austrougarske monarhije u Brodu na Savi 1909. godine’, Slavnonski Brod: Hrvatski institut za povijest - Podružnica za povijest Slavonije, Srijema i Baranje (2006): 234–66.

⁴² Ela V. VHA 37,877.

⁴³ Bar Giora, društvo Židova visokoškolaca iz jugoslavenskih zemalja; in German, Bar Giora, Vereinigung jüdischer Hochschüler aus den südslavischen Länder.

⁴⁴ Oparnica, ‘Sephardi Politics’, 84–7.

⁴⁵ Marija Vulesica, ‘An Ambivalent Relationship: The Yugoslav Zionists and Their Perception of “Germanness,” Germany, and the German Jews at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century’, in Jews and Germans in Eastern Europe, ed. Tobias Grill (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018), 176–98; Ljiljana Dobrovšak, ‘Prvi cionistički kongres u Osijeku 1904. godine’, Časopis za suvremenu povijest 37 (2005): 489; Oparnica, ‘Sephardi Politics’, 86–7.

⁴⁶ In 1917, just after the publication of the Balfour Declaration, the Serbian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Milenko Vesnić, expressed the sympathy of the Serbian state for the Jewish state in a letter that was sent directly to Serbian consul in Washington DC, David Albala, and then published in newspapers; Lebl Albala, Vidov život. Biorgrafija Dr Davida Albale (Belgrade: Čigoja štampa, 2008), 88; original kept in the Central Archive for the History of Jewish People, Jerusalem, after David Albala’s gift in 1935. On antisemitism in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia: Milan Koljanin, Jevreji i antisemitizam u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji. 1918–1941 (Belgrade: Institut za savremenu istoriju, 2008); Lovro Kralj, ‘Paving the Road to the Holocaust, Antisemitism in the Ustaša Movement, 1930–1945’ (PhD diss., Central European University, 2023).

⁴⁷ Report on Zionist Organisations and their Tendencies, Hrvatski državni arhiv (HDA), 145, k 20, 42/36 (24 Sept. 1935).

⁴⁸ Yaacov Shavit, Jabotinsky and the Revisionist Movement, 1925–1948 (London: Frank Cass & Co, 2013). On Betar’s ideological influences on Polish Jews in the eve of the Second World War: Daniel Kupfert Heller, Jabotinsky’s Children: Polish Jews and the Rise of Right-Wing Zionism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019).

⁴⁹ Geza B. HVT 2878.

⁵⁰ On Zionist Organisations and Their Tendencies.

⁵¹ Samuel D. Kassow, ‘The Left Poalei Tsiyon in Interwar Poland’, in The Emergence of Modern Jewish Politics: Bundism and ZIonism and Eastern Europe, ed. Zvi Gittelman (Pittsburg: University of Pittsburg Press, 2003), 71–84; David Cesarani, The Jews and the Left (London: Labour Friends of Israel, 2004), 50.

⁵² Oparnica, ‘Sephardi Politics’, 194; Jakir Eventov, ‘Omladina iz 1918’, Jevrejski Almanah (1955–6), 103.

⁵³ Wolfgang Maderthamer and Lisa Silverman, ‘“Weiner Kreise”: Jewishness, Culture, and Politics in Interwar Vienna’, in Interwar Vienna: Culture between Tradition and Modernity, ed. Deborah Holmes and Lisa Silverman (New York: Camden House, 2009), 71.

⁵⁴ Eventov, ‘Omladina iz 1918’, 103.

⁵⁵ Elkana Margalit, ‘Social and Intellectual Origins of the Hashomer Hatzair Youth movement, 1913–1920’, Journal of Contemporary History 4 (1969): 25–46.

⁵⁶ Andreja Preger, ‘Jevrejska omladinska društva u Jugoslaviji od 1926. do 1941’, in Jevrejska omladinska društva na tlu Jugoslavije, 1919–1941, ed. Milica Mihajlović (Belgrade: Jevrejski istorijski muzej, 1995), 17–25 (24).

⁵⁷ Hašomer Hacair (Zagreb: Biblioteka ‘Hanoar’, 1932). 3.

⁵⁸ Anica D. HTV 3580, 1996.

⁵⁹ Anica D. HTV 3580, 1996.

⁶⁰ Anica D. HTV 3580, 1996.

⁶¹ Hašomer Hacair, 54.

⁶² Hašomer Hacair, 53.

⁶³ Armando Moreno, ‘Jevrejska omladina Beograda u NOB’, Jevrejski almanah (1964), 105, fn1 (added by the editors of the volume).

⁶⁴ Salamon R. HTV 3587, 1996.

⁶⁵ ‘Matatja’, Jevrejski Život 133 (12 Tebet 5687/17 Dec. 1926), 2.

⁶⁶ Oparnica, ‘Sephardi Politics’.

⁶⁷ Moni Finci, ‘O radu u Matatji’, in Sarajevo u revoluciji I, ed. Nissim Albahari et al. (Sarajevo: Istorijski arhiv Sarajevo, 1986), 565.

⁶⁸ Combined with a high natural increase in the population of the Kingdom SCS at large (especially in Bosnia-Herzegovina and southern parts of the country), this resulted in unemployment rates as high as 60 per cent by some estimates; Jelena Rafailović, ‘Economic Structure of the Population in the Kingdom of SCS’, Tokovi istorije 3 (2019), 79–104.

⁶⁹ Moni Finci, ‘Jedna burna priredba Matatje’, Jevrejski almanah (1954): 97–102.

⁷⁰ Finci, ‘O radu u Matatji’, 565.

⁷¹ Romano, Jevreji Jugoslavije, 42.

⁷² Friedenreich, The Jews of Yugoslavia, 168.

⁷³ Anica D. HTV 3580, 1996.

⁷⁴ We know that at the beginning of 1932, after significant purges, the party numbered 300–500 members. In 1933 it already had 1,400. Ivan Jelić, Komunisitčka partija Hrvatske, 1937–1945, vol. I (Zagreb: Globus, 1981), 29.

⁷⁵ For Jews in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in the inter-war period see: Romano, Jevreji Jugoslavije, 19–54.

⁷⁶ Kerenji, ‘Your Salvation’.

⁷⁷ ‘Instruction of the Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Croatia for Dalmatia from August 1941’, in Zbornik dokumenata i podatka o narodnooslobodilačkom ratu Naroda Jugoslavije vol. 5/30 (Belgrade: Vojnoistorijski institut, 1963), 15.

⁷⁸ Kerenji, ‘Your Salvation’, 60–6.

⁷⁹ Miroljub Vasić, Revolucionarni omladinski pokret u Jugoslaviji, 1929–1941 (Belgrade: Narodna knjiga/Institut za savremenu istoriju, 1977), 118.

⁸⁰ Vasić, Revolucionarni omladinski pokret, 595.

⁸¹ Sida S. HTV 3589, 1996.

⁸² Kečkemet, Židovi u povijesti Splita, 184–5.

⁸³ Josif P. HTV 3760, 1997.

⁸⁴ A selection of works on the Ustaša movement, their racist policies and destruction of Jewish communities in the Independent State of Croatia: Bogdan Krizman, Ante Pavelić i Ustaše (Zagreb: Globus, 1978); Bogdan Krizman , Ustaše i Treći rajh (Zagreb: Globus, 1983); Pavlovich, Hitler’s New Disorder, 22–48; Rory Yeomans, Visions of Annihilation: The Ustasha Regime and the Cultural Politics of Fascism, 1941–1945 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014); Ivo Goldstein, The Holocaust in Croatia (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 2016); Goran Miljan, ‘From Obscure Beginnings to State “Resurrection”: Ideas and Practives of the Ustaša Organisation’, in Fascism 5 (2016): 3–25; Milan Koljanin, ed., Ustaška zverstva. Zbornik dokumenata (1941–1942) (Novi Sad: Arhiv Vojvodine/Eparhija Bačka, 2020).

⁸⁵ Salamon Pinto’s report.

⁸⁶ Josip P. VHA 43, 068.

⁸⁷ Aleksandar L. HTV 2203, 1991.

⁸⁸ Carlo Spartaco Capogreco, I campi di duce. L’internamento civile nell’Italia fascista (1940–1943) (Milan: Guilio Einaudi editore, 2019), 13.

⁸⁹ Ustaša changed the citizenship law in order to limit it to Aryans and forbade participation in social and cultural organisations for non-Aryans, at first disposing of and finally nationalising Jewish and Serbian businesses and properties; Tomasevich, War and Revolution, 383–6. Nazi occupiers and Serbian collaborationists proscribed registration of Jews. As early as May, Jews were rounded up and sent to the Danica camp and later that summer they were deported, together with many Serbs, Roma and communists to the concentration and death camp Jasenovac in NDH.

⁹⁰ Rodogno, ‘Italiani brava gente?’, 219.

⁹¹ On the relationship of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia with Jewish refugees: Olivera Milosavljević, Savremenici fašizma. Percepcija fašizma u beogradskoj javnosti, 1933–1941 (Belgrade: Helsinški odbor za ljudska prava, 2010), 241–80; Milan Ristović, Jugoslovenski Jevreji u bekstvu od Holokausta (1941–1945) (Belgrade: Čigoja štampa, 2016), 23–55. On Jewish migrations in NDH: Marica Karakaš-Obradov, ‘Prisilne migracije židovskog stanovništva na području Nezavisne Države Hrvatske’, Croatica Cristiana Periodica (2013): 153–78. Anna Maria Gruenfelder, Von der Shoah eingeholt. Ausländische jüdische Flüchtlinge im ehemaligen Jugoslawien (1938–1945) (Vienna: Böhlau, 2013), also available in Croatian as Sustigla ih Šoa. Strani Židovi izbjeglice u Jugoslaviji (1933–1945) (Zagreb: Srednja Europa, 2018); Anna Maria Gruenfelder, ‘Nepoželjni gosti. Židovske izbjeglice u Jugoslaviji (1941–1945)’, Zbornik Jevrejskog Istorijskog muzeja Beograd 10 (2015): 303–62.

⁹² Bernard Stulli, Židovi u Dubrovniku (Zagreb: Matica hrvatska, 1989), 80–1. E. Tolentino mentions 700 refugees in the first days of the war: Emilio Tolentino, ‘Fašistička okupacija Dubrovnika 1941–1945 i riješavanja “Jevrejskog pitanja”’, Studije i građa o Jevrejima Dubrovnika: Jevrejske studije 1 (Beograd: Jevrejski historijski muzej, 1971), 201.

⁹³ Cipriani wrote that on the eve of Italian 1938 racist laws, there were only forty-six Jews in Zara; Carlo Cetteo Cipriani, ‘Squardo sugli Ebrei in Dalmazia dal 1938 e il lavoro coatto 1941–1943’, Atti e Memorie della Società Dalmata di Storia Patria n. 8, 3 (Vol. XLI), 73 (71–81).

⁹⁴ Bojan Aleksov, Jewish Refugees in the Balkans, 1933–1945 (London/Leiden: Brill, 2023), 188–90. Aleksov describes in detail the ways to get past the border with ID documents in the name of real people from Dalmatia, wearing traditional Muslim clothing and using different levels of bribe.

⁹⁵ Stulli, Židovi u Dubrovniku, 81.

⁹⁶ Državni zavod za statistiku republike Hrvatske, Naselja i stanovništvo republike Hrvatske 1857–2001, last accessed 4 April 2023, https://web.dzs.hr/Hrv/DBHomepages/Naselja%20i%20stanovnistvo%20Republike%20Hrvatske/Naselja%20i%20stanovnistvo%20Republike%20Hrvatske.html. According to the population census of 1931, Split had around 40,000 inhabitants.

⁹⁷ Kečkemet, Židovi u povijesti Splita, 120. Most authors agree that there were around 5,000 Jewish refugees in total in Italian Dalmatia; Karakaš-Obradov, ‘Prisilne migracije’.

⁹⁸ Letter of the Jewish community of Split directed to Italian Committee for Assistance of Immigrant, Državni arhiv u Splitu (HR–DAST), K – 3/ III (1 May 1928).

⁹⁹ Abigail Green, ‘New Networks, New Connections: The Emergence of the Jewish International’, in Religions Internationals in the Modern World: Globalization and Faith Communities since 1750, ed. Abigail Green and Vincent Viane (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 53–81.

¹⁰⁰ Kečkemet, Židovi u povijesti Splita, 174.

¹⁰¹ Aleksov, Jewish Refugees, 212.

¹⁰² This was the case of children saved from Dalmatian coast by their transport and refugees at the Villa Emma, in Nonantola in the province of Modena; Klaus Voight, Villa Emma: Jüdische Kinder auf fer Flucht, 1940–1945 (Berlin: Metropol, 2016); Klaus Voigt, ‘The Children of Villa Emma at Nonantola’, in Jews in Italy under Fascist and Nazi Rule, 1922–1945, ed. Joshua Zimmerman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 182–96.

¹⁰³ Josip P. VHA 43,068.

¹⁰⁴ Renée Poznanski, ‘Reflections on Jewish Resistance and Jewish Resistance in France’, Jewish Social Studies 2, no. 1 (1995): 141–5.

¹⁰⁵ Josip P. VHA 43,068.

¹⁰⁶ Josip P. VHA 43,068.

¹⁰⁷ Anka Berus, ‘Split u socijalističkoj revoluciji’, in Split u Narodnooslobodilačkoj borbi 1941–1945, ed. Miroslav Ćurin (Split: Institut za historiju radničkog pokreta Dalmacije, 1981), 13.

¹⁰⁸ Josip P. VHA 48,867.

¹⁰⁹ On lack of contact between the party centre in Zagreb and Dalmatia in 1934: Jelić, Komunisitčka partija Hrvatske, 61–4. On the independence of unions working under the Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in Dalmatia in 1938: Jelić, Komunisitčka partija Hrvatske, 141–5.

¹¹⁰ This was only 100 members fewer than the entirety of continental Croatia. Berus, ‘Split u socijalističkoj revoluciji’, 13. Jelić, Komunistička partija Hrvatske, 58.

¹¹¹ Sibe Kvesić, Dalmacija u narodnooslobodilačkoj borbi (Split: Institut za historiju radničkog pokreta Dalmacije, 1979), 7–49; 27–32.

¹¹² In the early summer and autumn of 1943, Split was one of the crucial spots of the revolt, alongside Belgrade, Zagreb and Karlovac. Ivo Goldstein and Slavko Goldstein, Tito (Novi Sad: Akademska knjiga, 2018), 203, 207.

¹¹³ Miljan Paško, ‘O radu partijske i SKOJ-evske organizacije na sakupljanju, uskladištenju i održavanju oružja i municije na širem području Splita u proleće 1941. godine’, in Split u narodnooslobodilačkoj borbi i socijalističkoj revoluciji, 1941–1945, ed. Fabijan Trgo et al. (Split: Institut za historiju radničkog pokreta Dalmacije, 1981), 101–29; Tonći Šitin, ‘O razvitku omladinskog revolucionarnog pokreta u Splitu, 1941–1942’, in Split u narodnooslobodilačkoj borbi i socijalističkoj revoluciji, 1941–1945, ed. Fabijan Trgo et al. (Split: Institut za historiju radničkog pokreta Dalmacije, 1981), 377–406.

¹¹⁴ Cadik Danon, ‘Životni put jednog rabina’, in Mi smo preživeli IV (Belgrade: Jevrejski historijski muzej Beograd), 18.

¹¹⁵ Danon, ‘Životni put’, 18. Sara S. mentions her two cousins Rea A. and Rena A. who were in Hashomer Hatzair and joined the movement. The latter was shot by the Italians in Montenegro.

¹¹⁶ Romano, Jevreji Jugoslavije, 270–1.

¹¹⁷ HR–DAST 438, Pokrajinski komitet za Dalmaciju, k. 24, Report of the Regional Committee for Dalmatia, n.d. Drago Gizdić, Dalmacija 1941. godine (Split: Institut za historiju radničkog pokreta Dalmacije, 1972), 447.

¹¹⁸ Sara S. HVT 3589

¹¹⁹ Josip P. VHA 43,068. Similar actions were splashing bottles of red ink over stencilled drawings of Mussolini or putting up the Yugoslav flag on the cathedral spire; Aleksov, Jewish Refugees, 201.

¹²⁰ Romano, Jevreji Jugoslavije, 263i; Mate Bilobrk, ‘Iz rada partijske organizacije Splita 1941. godine’, in Ustanak naroda Jugoslavije IV, ed. Petar Brajović et al. (Belgrade: Vojnoizdavački zavod ‘Vojno delo’, 1964), 158.

¹²¹ Danon, ‘Životni put’, 24.

¹²² Danon, ‘Životni put’, 25.

¹²³ Mussolini held the Yugoslavs as primitive tribes undeserving of a nation-state; see more in: James Burgwych, Empire on the Adriatic. Mussolini’s Conquest of Yugoslavia, 1941–1943 (New York: Enigma Books, 2005), 21–2.

¹²⁴ Steinberg, All or Nothing, 34–5.

¹²⁵ Amedeo Osti Guerrazzi, The Italian Army in Slovenia: Strategies of Antipartisan Repression, 1941–1943 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 25–6. Osti Guerrazzi details the communist leadership of the Oslobodilna Fronta in Slovenia, which did not prevent individuals and groups with different ideologies from joining the resistance.

¹²⁶ Narcisa Lengel-Krizman, ‘Koncentracioni logori talijanskog okupatora u Dalmaciji i Hrvatskom primorju (1941–1943)’, Povijesni prilozi 2, no. 1 (1983): 248.

¹²⁷ Danon, ‘Život jednog rabina’, 26.

¹²⁸ Duško Kečkemet, ‘Židovski sabirni logori na području pod talijanskom upravom’, 120.

¹²⁹ Aleksov, Jewish Refugees, 202.

¹³⁰ This was a method used in the entire Italian empire: removing foreign but also sometimes local Jews from the area of enforced italicisation or for reasons of war or shortage of living goods; Sarfatti, I confini di una persecuzione, 89.

¹³¹ Furthermore, camps also existed on the islands of Brač, Hvar and Korčula, of which only Korčula was under direct Italian control (in the so-called Zone I), while Brač and Hvar were under official NDH occupation and military rule while Italians held civil rule.

¹³² Marko Šprung on the camp on Rab, JIM, Fond Holokaust, k 19, f. 6–1, br. 3678 (12 Aug. 1968).

¹³³ It is difficult to say precisely how many members of the school were on the island at the moment the war started in 1941. According to post-war lists of the Jewish communities in Yugoslavia between 1941 and 1943, Vela Luka hosted in total 218 internees; JIM, Fond Holokaust, k 74, f 4b-5, reg.br 4559. We know that Hachshara functioned until 1942 at least: HR–DAST 151, 5–III, 19 Jan. 1943. In 1943, the Jewish community in Split registers four recipients as former members of the ‘fishing school’; HR–DAST 151, 6–II, n.d.

¹³⁴ Bojan Aleksov, ‘Exile on Korčula’, in Jewish Literatures and Cultures, ed. Renate Hansen-Kokoruš and Olaf Terpitz (Vienna: Böhlau, 2020), 298–305.

¹³⁵ Enriko J., USHMM RG-50.459.0006.

¹³⁶ Chiara Renzo, Jewish Displaced Persons in Italy: Politics, Rehabilitation, Identity (London: Routledge, 2024), 14.

¹³⁷ Salamon Pinto’s report; Majer A. HTV 3592, 1996; Anica D. HTV 3580, 1996.

¹³⁸ For more on the Jewish cafeteria in Vienna: Statuten des Verein jüdischer Hochschüler ‘Mensa academica Judaica’ in Wien (Vienna: Verein jüdischer Hochschüler ‘Mensa academica Judaica’, 1912). On attacks on the Jewish students’ cafeteria in Vienna: Roland Clark, ‘Terror and Antisemitic Student Violence in East–Central Europe, 1919–1923’, in A Transnational History of Right-Wing Terrorism: Political Violence and the Far Right in Eastern and Western Europe since 1900, ed. Johannes Dafinger and Moritz Florin (New York: Routledge, 2022), 77–8.

¹³⁹ Vojo Rajčević, Studentski pokret na Zagrebačkom sveučilištu 1918–1941 (Zagreb: Mladost, 1959), 138.

¹⁴⁰ Majer A. HTV 3592, 1996.

¹⁴¹ Salamon Pinto’s report; Marko Šprung’s report on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Rab battalion, JIM, Fond Holokaust, k 19, f. 6-1, 3678.

¹⁴² Enriko J. USHMM RG-50.459.0006; Aleksov, ‘Exile on Korčula’, 298.

¹⁴³ Jens Hoppe, ‘Curzola Island’, in The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945. Camps and Ghettos under European Regimes Aligned with Nazi Germany. Vol. 3, ed. Geogey P. Megargee (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2018) 546–7.

¹⁴⁴ Aleksandar Mošić, ‘Jevreji na Korčuli’, Mi smo preživeli... : Jevreji o Holokaustu I, ed. Aleksandar Gaon et all (Belgrade: Jevrejski istorijski muzej Beograd, 2001), 185.

¹⁴⁵ Mošić, ‘Jevreji na Korčuli’, 186.

¹⁴⁶ Erlih was born in 1915 in Sarajevo. He died in a battle in 1944. “Erlih, Evald (Branko), Židovski biografski leksikon, Accessed June 3, 2025 https://zbl.lzmk.hr/?p=3264.

¹⁴⁷ David Kabiljo’s report on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Rab battalion, JIM, Fond Holokaust, k. 19, f. 6–1, 6389 (1 May 1966).

¹⁴⁸ Erlih died in Kordun, fighting Ustaša on either 22 or 26 October 1944. Viktor Hajon and David Kabiljo survived the war.

¹⁴⁹ By 14 November or, more precisely, when the Yugoslav consulate in the Vatican heard about this camp from the Vatican State Secretary’s office; Karakaš-Obradov, ‘Prisilne migracije’, 158. They had all lived under different conditions; while Jews in Split and Dalmatia mostly lived in confino libero, the camp in Kraljevica is often described as a ‘real camp’. Kečkemet, ‘Židovski sabirni logori’, 124.

¹⁵⁰ A severe policy introduced on 7 June 1942. Bastiani and Grazioli enforced a decree stating that all members of a partisan family were considered hostages, forbidding them from leaving their homes under the threat of immediate execution. Frank Verna, ‘Notes on Italian Rule in Dalmatia under Bastianini, 1941–1943’, International History Review 12, no. 3 (Aug. 1990), 538–9; Lengel-Krizman, ‘Koncentracioni logori’.

Rab was the meeting point of Jews and political enemies of the Italian regime, Slovenes and Croatians who were involved with the resistance movement. For them, the camp on Rab was the continuation of Italian repressive policy, the so-called rastrellamento or actions of cleaning the terrain: an unsupported doubt that partisans went through a village was enough to launch a strike against the local population that included destroying houses and barns, looting of the food supplies, cattle, mass shootings and, finally, taking hostages and family members to concentration camps in both the annexed territories and the Italian mainland. None of these punitive measures had much success and by January 1942, it was obvious that the civil administration was not capable of keeping the annexed territories in a state of peace. As a result of this, in mid-January 1942 Mussolini put the military in charge of public order in the Zara, Spalato, Cattaro and Liublana provinces and the territories surrounding the Fiume province. In March 1942, following the infamous circular 3C by General Roatta, which acknowledged the ‘ceaseless war’ on the former Yugoslav territories, mass round ups began of all civilians who were suspects of partisan activity, including unemployed workers, refugees, homeless people, former members of the army, beggars, university students, elementary school teachers, professionals and parish priests and their internment in camps. These camps were notorious for the low standards of hygiene, food deprivation, work and poor healthcare. The camp in Kampor on the island Rab, which also included a sub-camp for Jews, was also infamous for its conditions. More in: Kečkemet, ‘Židovski sabirni logori na području pod talijanskom upravom’, 124; Marina Cattaruza, Italy and Its Eastern Border, 1866–2016 (London: Routledge, 2016), 161; Ivan Kovačić, Kampor 1942–1943. Hrvati, Slovenci i Židovi u koncentracijskom logoru Kamporna otoku Rabu (Rijeka: Adamić, 1998).

¹⁵¹ Carlo Spartaco Capogreco and Jens Hoppe, ‘Arbe (Rab)’, in Encyclopedia Camps and Ghettos: Camps and Ghettos under European Regimes Aligned with Nazi Germany, ed. Geoggrey P. Megargee, vol. III (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2018), 541.

¹⁵² Kovačić, Kampor, 226.

¹⁵³ Kovačić, Kampor, 233; Janež Herman, Kampor, koncentracijsko taborišče na Rabu (Ljubljana: ČZDO Komunist/TOZD Komunit, 1968), 11–12.

¹⁵⁴ Kovačić, Kampor, 233. Herman, Kampor, 11–12.

¹⁵⁵ Salamon Pinto’s report.

¹⁵⁶ Kovačić, Kampor, 291.

¹⁵⁷ Kerenji, ‘Your Salvation’, 66. Kerenji emphasises the fact that some Jews joined the resistance movement reluctantly.

¹⁵⁸ Zdenko Levental, Zločini fašističkih okupatora i njihovih pomagača protiv Jevreja u Jugoslaviji (Belgrade: Savez jevrejskih opština Jugoslavije, 1952), 132.

Article contents

‘We Liberated Ourselves from Italians!’: Jewish Agency, Self-Organisation, and Resistance in the Italian-Occupied Dalmatia, 1941–3

Abstract

Information

‘Ideologically Different, but Close’: Jewish Inter-War Political Ideologies and Organisations in Inter-War Yugoslavia

‘United Rhythm against Violence’: Resistance to Fascist Occupation in Dalmatia, 1941–3

Conclusion

Footnotes

Save article to Kindle

Save article to Dropbox

Save article to Google Drive

Reply to: Submit a response

Your details

You have entered the maximum number of contributors

Conflicting interests