My Grandfather’s Memorial Illuminates Holocaust History in Serbia

In April 1941 when the German occupation began in Belgrade, my grandfather's address was Solunska Ulica 8. He lived there with my grandmother Regina, his two younger brothers, and my father, who was two and a half years old. My grandfather worked as a clerk for the electricity company. He was responsible for his younger brothers, both of whom became Partisans and one of whom was killed in battle.

Like all Jewish men, under threat of death my grandfather registered at Kalemegdan, the ancient fortress that overlooks the Danube. There he received the yellow star he had to wear and a work assignment: he dug ditches and laid pipe on a sewer-repair crew, along with his neighbours. It was slave labour, but through the spring and summer of 1941, he was able to return at night to my grandmother and my father at Solunska Ulica 8.

One night in late August 1941, around my father's third birthday, my grandfather didn't come back. My father remembers my grandmother wailing. She was pregnant with my aunt.

My grandfather and the other male Jewish slave labourers were now imprisoned in Topovske Supe, a detention camp in Belgrade. City residents walked by the camp in the course of their daily lives. Conditions were horrific. The prisoners relied on their female family members to bring them food. My grandmother did this until one day she arrived, and the gates were open, and the camp was empty.

My grandmother wanted to believe rumours that the Jewish prisoners had been moved elsewhere for work. For years after the war, she held out hope he was still alive. But we know now my grandfather was probably shot and buried in a mass grave that day.

German artist Gunter Demnig installing a Stolperstein in Belgrade. Photo: Julie Brill.