Book on the Righteous - Jevrejska opština Zemun

Righteous Among The Nations - Serbia
Stories About The Righteous
nurse at the same clinic. When Raka appealed to Dr.
Marinković for help, he immediately checked him into
his ward and put his healthy leg in plaster. It was a temporary
solution that bought time. Through her contacts
Stanka obtained fake documents for Raka and his family.
When the papers came through, the family acquired
new Serbian names. The document issued to Raka
under the name of Radovan Rosić was a fairly passable
forgery. It arrived not a moment too soon. The Germans
had begun searching the hospitals for Jews and arresting
the ones they found. Raka fled from the hospital at the
very last moment. The occupiers had not yet initiated
the process of implementing their final solution to the
Jewish question - to apprehend all remaining Jews in
Belgrade, mostly women and children, who had up to
then been spared from persecution, and take them to
camp Zemlin, i.e., Sajmište. Flora was still at home
with the children. Raka dared not go home. He spent
the night in Isak’s abandoned shop
and in the morning, as prearranged,
met his family at the railway station.
Stanka had accompanied Flora
and the girls to the station and thus
witnessed the family’s reunion.
Raka’s document withstood the
first test. Showing little interest in
women and children at that time,
the Germans hardly looked at their
fake documents. It was Raka’s papers
that they checked out since
they were looking out for Jewish
men and Communists fleeing from
the city. Radovan Rosić was not on
their list.
In short, that is how the family reached Kuršumlija.
Once there, the Rubens settled in hotel “Evropa”. However,
at the end of 1941 and beginning of 1942, fierce
battles between the Partisans and Chetniks were fought
Raša Nikolić
101
in the vicinity of Kuršumlija. Germans headed out to
assist the Chetniks, who were losing command of the
territory. Although the town was governed by Bulgarians,
a German punitive expedition was on its way to
Kuršumlija and Jews from the “Evropa” Hotel had to
find new accommodation without delay. Their retreat in
the direction of mountain Kopaonik was initiated. The
scattered villages on the mountain slopes offered relative
safety.
Raša Nikolić, a native of village Konjuva, was also in
Kuršumlija. Before the war Raša had been employed in
a small business, owned by a Jew, inside the Belgrade
General Bazaar on Terazije. His employer had been kind
to him and he believed that the time had come to repay
the generosity extended to him by helping Jews in their
time of need. By then, the Ruben family had already left
hotel “Evropa” and was staying in a room of a thatched
hut near the cattle market.
A sense of danger of the forthcoming
persecution of the Jewish
refugees in Kuršumlija could
be felt in the air. Together with
Predrag Vasić from the village of
Dankovići, Raša drove a group
of Jews out of the town. A race
against time commenced. A group
of thirty-seven Jews, among them
the Rubens, were taken prisoner
before anything could be done to
save them. The prisoners were to be
transported to the Crveni Krst camp
in Niš the same day they were arrested
the instant the commanded
train was ready at Kuršumlija station. A group, led by
Predrag Vasić, was organized to set the Jewish prisoners
free. On learning that the transport for Niš would be
leaving within eight hours, there was no time to make
detailed plans. The group decided to eliminate the guard