Republic of Serbia 2005

 

A great deal of antisemitic graffiti was reported in 2005 on the walls of Jewish facilities, as well as on property of institutions allegedly under Jewish control. Numerous nationalist far right organizations are active in Serbia, some closely connected to the Serbian Orthodox Church.

 

The Jewish community

The Jewish community in Serbia and Montenegro has some 3,000 members out of a total population of 7 million. Most live in Belgrade, the capital, and the rest are dispersed among Novi Sad, Zemun, Subotica and a few smaller cities. The roof organization is the Federation of Jewish Communities of Serbia and Montenegro (FJCSM), located in Belgrade. The Jewish Museum in Belgrade operates a database on the Holocaust and collects testimonies from survivors. The American Joint Distribution Committee supports local activities and enhancement of the cultural and economic life of the communities. Although there are no Jewish educational institutions, Hebrew is taught at the community level. At Sajmisthe, an eternally lit menorah memorializes Jews persecuted during World War II.

 

nationalist organizations

Almost all extreme right nationalist parties claim that they have nothing against other nations and minorities and only want to strengthen national identity. None are overtly antisemitic, probably due to the law prohibiting incitement of racial, religious or ethnic hatred and intolerance.

The Serbian Radical Party (Srpska Radikalna Stranka – SRS) is an extremely right-wing nationalist organization. Its founder and director Vojislav Sheselj is currently on trial in The Hague, accused of war crimes and atrocities against humanity. Similarly, Raznatovic Arkan, founder of the ultra-nationalist Party of Serbian Unity (Stranka Srpskog Jedinstva) and the leader of paramilitary forces during the Balkan wars, was wanted for war crimes, but was murdered in 2000. Borislav Pelevic is acting leader of the party.

The Serbian Orthodox Church (Srpska Pravoslavna Crkva − SPC), as well as groups associated with it, is known for its ambivalent attitude toward the Jews and antisemitism, and some high-ranking Church officials have been observed at nationalist events. While on the one hand, representatives of the Church have condemned antisemitic acts and stated that antisemitism is not in the nature of Serbian Orthodoxy, on the other, the Church recently proclaimed an antisemite − Archbishop Nikolaj Velimirovic − a saint.

            A highly educated man who became a symbol of Serbian thought, spiritualism and Orthodoxy, Velimirovic freely expressed his antisemitic beliefs in several of his works, including those − published repeatedly − from his days in Dachau concentration camp in 1945, where the German occupiers had imprisoned him because of the perceived threat he posed due to his promotion of Serbian strength and values and unity of the Orthodox world. For example, in Through the Cell Window (Valijevo, 2003, pp. 160−2), he said:

But many Jews… stood against Christ, stepped on him and killed him... Inspired by the stinking spirit of Satan, they judged and murdered Christ. And above all they showed themselves worse enemies of God than Pilate himself …

and,

… one indeed wonders how baptized and Christianized Europeans surrendered totally to the Yids [Jeeds], so they think with a Yid’s head, accept the Yids’ programs, adopt the Yid’s fight against Christ… what is most important is how Europe became the servant of the Yids…”

Velimirovic warns Serbs to correct their thinking and deeds so that they, too, do not become “sons of Satan.”

            Velimirovic is the spirit behind several nationalist organizations: Obraz (or Otcastveni Pokret Obraz − Face), a well-organized ultra-rightist group, was formed in the mid-1990s in Belgrade University’s Faculty of History. Some of its members, such as Rados Ljusic, known as the unofficial ideologist of the movement, are known for their radical views. Originally, the official Obraz website included a “Declaration for the Enemy,” which threatened Jewish or Judeo-Masonic individuals or groups. It was eventually replaced with the text:

Will Serbs exist in the near future or will we be murdered by Shiptars [derogatory term for Albanians], those who converted to Islam, or die by the hand of Judeo-Masonic NATO murderers?... or will we… drown in the sewers of the Soros Open Society [Open Society Institute − a foundation of Hungarian American Jew George Soros] and the New World Order?

Many antisemitic and racial incidents, such as graffiti writing on Jewish facilities, on buildings where Jews are employed or on institutions perceived to house liberal/open-minded people (Belgrade University’s Faculty of Philosophy, B-92 TV [an independent TV channel which opposed the Milosevic regime], Helsinki Committee for Human Rights), have been attributed to Obraz, but have not been proven. The current leader is Mladen Obradovic. The site provides links to far right organizations throughout Europe.

The nationalist, religious Saint Justin the Philosopher (Sveti Justin Filozof) movement, named after a pupil of Velimirovic, attracts conservative and Orthodox members, and is reportedly supported by SPC. Branches of the movement exist in many universities in Serbia.

Begun in Belgrade University’s Faculty of Philology in 1999, Dveri (Gates) is one of the largest movements, attracting both extreme right and Orthodox supporters. The organization opposes globalization and mondialism (an alternative form of globalization). It has close links to the SPC and Church officials sometimes lecture at their weekly meetings at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. In 2001, Dveri claimed that Orthodox Serbian unity cannot be achieved with those who do not accept the Truth, such as Jews, Muslims, Protestants. Their ideology is based on conspiracy theories (such as powerful forces controlling the world) and extreme xenophobia, requiring Serbia to unite nationally and religiously. The movement has a journal and is expanding rapidly throughout Serbia.

The Serbian People’s Movement (Svetozar Miletic), located in Vojvodina, is a far right organization, although this is not apparent from its program (due to the law prohibiting incitement of racial, religious or ethnic hatred). Many of its members are professionals and academics and the movement has the support of high-ranking SPC officials. Its website has links to the organizations mentioned above, as well as to groups, such as Final Combat (see below) which share its point of view.

Final Combat (Poslednji Obracun), led by Dimitrije Najdanovic, has members from Serbia and among Diaspora Serbs, as well as from other nations. Their ideology, a slightly modified version of National Socialism, opposes interracial relations. In regard to the Jews, their manifesto reads: “World Jewry should be avoided even when they offer gifts. A skill which will teach how to prevent any contacts with them and a skill how to intercept their actions should be established…[sic]” The main difference between Final Combat and other groups is that while the latter concentrate on the spiritual-intellectual side, the former emphasizes physical preparation in order to defeat the enemy.

            The Serbian Right (Srpska Desnica) apparently acts as an umbrella for all Church-related far right groups. Other nationalist organizations, with varying degrees of antisemitism, include: the Serbian Knights (Srpski Vitezovi), also based on Serbian Orthodoxy and located in Belgrade University’s medical faculty; Rasionalisti, the Serbian division of Stormfront; the extremely antisemitic US-based Serbian Defense League, connected to Stormfront; and the neo-Nazi National Line (Nacionalni Stroj).

           

antisemitic activity

Antisemitic activity in Serbia is usually confined to graffiti on walls and buildings, usually belonging to Jewish individuals and organizations, but sometimes on non-Jewish ones because the perpetrators assume that the Jews control everything. Such activity was reported in many Serbian cities in 2005. For example, on 26−27 January, a memorial plate dedicated to Jewish victims of World War II in Novi Knjazevac was coated with oil paint and a swastika and the words “Jews” (Zhidovi), scrawled on it. Central Belgrade and its surroundings were covered with anti-Zionist/antisemitic posters and graffiti on 22 March. Slogans on the wall of the Jewish cemetery read: “Fight the 5 October Zionist occupation of Serbia [fall of Milosevic regime]; “B-92 is Jewish Television!” “Jewish parasites get out of Serbia”; “We want freedom and not Jewish occupation! Serbia belongs to Serbs!” Similar graffiti appeared on buildings of the Rex Cultural Center (which engages in ‘cultural decontamination’ − showing films and lectures about recent Balkan wars and Serbian responsibility for them), formerly, the Jewish Oneg Shabbat Center; the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights and the Foundation for Humanity and Law. The graffiti accused the heads of the last two institutions of being “Jewish puppets.”

In May, several buildings in the city of Zrenjanin, Vojvodina, including a restaurant with a memorial plate to the synagogue that once stood there and to Jewish victims of the Holocaust were covered with fascist and antisemitic messages. In Nish, southern Serbia, the synagogue was desecrated twice – in June and July − with antisemitic slogans such as “Death to servants of Zionism” and “Arbeit macht frei.”

In February 2005 a list of Jews living in Serbia, including their home and office phone numbers and addresses appeared on the white supremacist Stormfront site, Serbian section. Although it was eventually removed, the site continues to regularly explain the damage Jewish people do to the world in general and particularly to Serbia.

An anti-fascist meeting at the University of Novi Sad was interrupted by a group of youths who resembled skinheads. Introducing themselves as ‘the National Line’, they saluted in the Nazi fashion and harassed and insulted the speakers and audience, They were apprehended and arrested a few days later. Literature found by the police on members of the National Line indicated the neo-Nazi orientation of the group.

A brochure containing the tract “Serbs in the Claws of Jews,” by Milorad Mojic, was distributed in Novi Sad, in February. The piece was originally written in 1940/1. The author claims, inter alia, that “Jews can dishonor non-Jewish girls.”

 

Antisemitic Publishers and Literature

The most antisemitic publisher is the Christian IHTUS, founded and owned by Ratibor Djurdjevic, who returned in the early 1990s from the US where he had immigrated. Djurdjevic receives support from Zarko Gavrilovicn a retired priest from the SPC. Djurdjevic wrote, translated and published books such as: The Elders of Zion; 3000 Years in the Service of the Satan; The Myth about the Holocaust; Judeo-Bankers and the Rise of Hitler and The Human Victim in Judaism. These books can be purchased cheaply in Belgrade; in fact, one of the bookshops specializing in such literature is located in the center, beside the Museum of Genocide. Although the local Jewish community brought legal charges against him, he was unable to appear in court, allegedly due to ill-health; nevertheless, he continues to write and publish.

Other publishers of antisemitic books include Ekopress in Zrenjanin, and Vojvodina, which printed Mein Kampf (foreword written by well-known Serbian writer Radomir Smiljanic). Dejan Lucic specializes in ‘conspiracy theories’ and blames the Jews for all the evil in the world, and especially in Serbia. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is widely available.