Book on the Righteous - Jevrejska opština Zemun

Righteous Among The Nations - Serbia
Stories About The Righteous
THERE ARE NO JEWS IN THIS HOUSE
Josif Levi, better known as Bata Levi among his acquaintances,
spent the evening with his friends at the cinema.
He came home late, but woke very early. It wasn’t that
he had slept enough, but on that day, April 6 th , 1941,
the bombardment of Belgrade, an open city, began in
the early hours of the morning without any warning.
Mother, Paula, sister, Neli and brother-in-law, Jacques
Romano, rushed to the basement with Bata Levi. When
the first onslaught of planes had passed, they returned
to their flat. Surprisingly, they were all very hungry so
Paula Levi, nee Adler, made breakfast for her family.
She was as composed and lucid as if nothing had happened.
Bata’s father had not lived to see the air raid on
Belgrade. He had died in 1935.
Neli Romano, Paula Levi i Jacques Romano
Once the country surrendered to the enemy, the persecution
of Jews began. They were made to wear the yellow
band first; after that, they were denied the right to work
while their shops were taken over by commissioners;
on the whole, they were left without means for living.
Actually, they had more work than they could handle.
With forced labour instituted, Jews were ordered to remove
the dead from the rubble of houses demolished
by bombs. Day after day they worked from morning to
night on clearing the debris with only a slice of bread to
sustain them. Constantly harassed and humiliated wherever
they ventured, they were forbidden to take trams;
they couldn’t buy bread in stores until everyone else had
bought their share. This meant one thing only: they were
frequently left without food. At the time, they were still
unaware that the lists of Jews the occupying authorities
had started drawing up from the beginning of their rule
were, in fact, death lists. In their intention to eliminate
a whole people in Serbia as part of their Fascist ideology
these lists were of vital importance to the invader.
Although the majority of Jews in Serbia perished during
the war, there were also those who refused to give up
on their lives without a fight. They hid, ran from occupied
Belgrade, sought rescue far from their homes. The
Nedić gendarmes first assisted the invaders in rounding
up Jews and then in hunting down those in hiding. However,
the greater part of the population was disposed to
helping Jews in their attempts to save themselves from
the ruthless enemy in any way possible, either because
they were their fellow citizens, or simply because of the
fact that they were being persecuted.
Concurrently, with the escalating maltreatment of Jews,
the Resistance movement was also gaining in significance.
Actions were taken against the enemy which
caused problems to their reign in the city. In one action
fused bottles filled with gasoline were thrown on
a line of German trucks. The encounter ended without
any casualties. When it was successively revealed that
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