Selected text
The night when they transported the Jews from Bjelovar to the camps, they transported us to Serbia. The first station was Zemun and then we continued to Velika Plana. They took us off and wanted us to divide up among different village houses. My husband asked them to let us continue on to Belgrade, because his father had bought a house there before the war. His two sisters lived in the house. We continued on to Belgrade, where my husband’s sisters, Nada and Mira, took us in. We moved into a small room with Mira, and my husband’s parents in an apartment with their other daughter. My husband was unable to find work, and I, as a Jew, was not permitted to go out a lot, so we had a very difficult life.
A great misfortune befell me in 1943 when my husband was captured by the Germans in the middle of the street. They took him to forced labor in the Kalemegdan Fortress in Belgrade, where there was a German munitions warehouse. My husband worked in the munitions warehouse with another five young people. In July 1943, one of the people that worked with my husband came to tell me that there had been an explosion in the warehouse, that my husband was badly wounded and had been taken to the hospital and that I should go and visit him. I found him all burned and red. He opened his eyes and told me: „Damned Germans, damned fascists. You go home and take care of the children.” He closed his eyes and breathed his last breath. I barely made it home. It was very difficult for me to inform his mother, who lost her husband to gangrene the same winter we arrived in Belgrade. I loved my husband’s parents very much, because they were always very good to me and they loved me, something I, unfortunately, cannot say about his sisters. They were very selfish and rude to me. When I was alone, with two small children, without anywhere to go, without anyone to turn to, in the middle of the craziness of war, they did not even ask me how I was going to manage alone.
A great misfortune befell me in 1943 when my husband was captured by the Germans in the middle of the street. They took him to forced labor in the Kalemegdan Fortress in Belgrade, where there was a German munitions warehouse. My husband worked in the munitions warehouse with another five young people. In July 1943, one of the people that worked with my husband came to tell me that there had been an explosion in the warehouse, that my husband was badly wounded and had been taken to the hospital and that I should go and visit him. I found him all burned and red. He opened his eyes and told me: „Damned Germans, damned fascists. You go home and take care of the children.” He closed his eyes and breathed his last breath. I barely made it home. It was very difficult for me to inform his mother, who lost her husband to gangrene the same winter we arrived in Belgrade. I loved my husband’s parents very much, because they were always very good to me and they loved me, something I, unfortunately, cannot say about his sisters. They were very selfish and rude to me. When I was alone, with two small children, without anywhere to go, without anyone to turn to, in the middle of the craziness of war, they did not even ask me how I was going to manage alone.
Location
Serbia
Interview
Jelisaveta Bubic