engleski

Jewish life in Croatia 1945-1952

The war and the immediate postwar period fundamentally changed the image of the Jewish community in Croatia, and postwar Yugoslavia when almost 4/5 of its prewar Jewish population was killed. Most of the prewar Jewish organizations did not resume their activities after the war. International Jewish organizations were an important factor in the survival of a small and weakened Jewish community. Generally speaking, the state did not prevent contacts of the local community with worldwide Jewish organizations, with the exception of the World Zionist Organization (WZO). The immediate postwar period was marked by an intense humanitarian activity of The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). In the interwar period, a network of small, medium and some large Jewish communities characterized Jewish life in Croatia. After the Second World War, Zagreb became the only major center, and the majority of surviving Croatian Jews settled there. The Zagreb Jewish Religious Community (as it was its official name then) took care of the survivors and opened the necessary accommodations for the returnees. They tried to locate Jewish children who were orphaned, and/or hidden by non-Jewish families on Croatian territory. Both personal and communal real estate, was placed under temporary state administration. The owners, in certain cases, could become interim managers of a portion of such a property (up to a certain value), whether it was communal or private property. Soon this property was nationalized. These circumstances, as well as their financial situation resulted in the departure of about 2/3 of the surviving Jews, from 1944/5 until 1952. After the Second World War, the Jewish community was rapidly secularized, and the power in it belonged mainly to the sympathizers of the communist ideology. The community defined itself as national, rather than religious. After the departure of half of the survivors and all of the rabbis except one, the community was finally redefined and it dropped the Religious from its title. This lecture will focus on the archives of different Jewish and non- Jewish archives in Croatia. Biographies will be used as well.

Jewish life, Croatia, Yugoslavia, JDC, property issues, communism

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