The first experiments in mass executions of camp inmates by poison gas
were carried out in Serbia.Serbia was the first country to proudly declare
itself "Judenfrei"("cleansed"of Jews).
In August 1942,Dr Harald Turner (the chief of the German civil
administration in Serbia)
announced that Serbia was the only country in which the "Jewish question"
was solved and
that Belgrade was the "first city of a New Europe to be Judenfrei"
The fight against the Jewish influence had actually started six months
before the German
invasion when the government of Serbia issued legislation restricting Jewish
participation in the
economy and universiti enrolment.
The Serbian chetniks of Draza Mihailovic were represented as fighters
against the
occupier,while in fact they were the allies of the Nazi fascists in
Yugoslavia...The documents
indicate clearly and unequivocally that the Chetniks collaborated with the
occupiers,both
in military and political sphere,as well as in the domain of economic
activity,intelligence and
propaganda....(source:the Serbian scholars,Dr.Jovan Marjanovic&Mihail
Stanisic,The
collaboration of Draza Mihailovic's Chetniks with the enemy forces of
occupation,1976.)
The Serbian government under General Milan Nedic worked closely with
local Nazi
officials in making Belgrade the first "Judenfrei"city of Europe.As late as
19.September 1943,
Nedic made an official visit to Adolf Hitler.Serbs in Berlin advanced the
idea that the
Serbs were the "Ubermenchen"(master race) of the Slavs.Indeed, with Nazi
blessings,Nedic
established the Serbian State Guard,numbering about 20,000,compared to the
3,400
German police in Serbia.Recruiting advertisements for the Serb police force
specified that
"applicants must have no Jewish or Gypsy blood". Nedic's second in command
was
Dimitrije Ljotic,founder of the Serbian Fascist Party and the principal
Fascist ideologist of
Serbia.Ljotic organized the Serbian Volunteers Corps,whose primary function
was
rounding up Jews,Bosniaks,Gypsies and partisans for execution.Serbian
citizens and
police received cash bounties for the capture and delivery of Jews. The
Serbian Orthodox
Church openly collaborated with the Nazis,and many priests publicly defended
the
persecution of the Jews.On 13 August 1941,approximately 500 distinguished
Serbs signed
"An Appeal to the Serbian Nation",which called for loyalty to the occupying
Nazis.
The first three signers were bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church.On
January 1942,
Metropolitan Josif,the acting officially prohibited conversions of Jews to
Serbian
Orthodoxy,thereby blocking a means of saving Jewish lives.At a public rally,
after the
government Minister Olcan"thanked God that the enormously powerful fist of
Germany
had not come down upon the heads of the Serbian nation"but instead"upon the
heads of
the Jews in our midst",the speaker of these words was then blessed by a
high-ranking
Serbian Orthodox priest.
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