Oslobođeni za ponovni progon. Židovski zatočenici logora Kampor (otok Rab) nakon evakuacije

Abstract

Na osnovu arhivske građe iz Hrvatskog Državnog arhiva u Zagrebu, Državnog arhiva u Rijeci i Arhiva Republike Slovenije (Ljubljana) rekonstruiram puteve oslobođenih židovskih zatočenika logora Kampor (otok Rab u potrazi za novom šansom za život, u sigurnosti, bez progona. Glavni štab NOV prebaci ih s otoka Raba na teritorij pod kontrolom partizana, netom prije njemačke okupacije Primorja, Dalmacije i Kvarnerskih otoka, no i taj „oslobođeni teritorij“ nije bio siguran od neprijateljskih upada. Vojno sposobni mobilizirani su, a drugi su se angažirali u pozadinskoj službi - iz zahvalnosti zbog evakuacije, iz idealizma i oduševljenje za ideale partizana, a neki i pod prisilom. Arhivska građa sadrži i dokumente o - uglavnom negativnom - odnosu boraca o Židovima i o predrasudama u narodu prema Židovima, koje su opterećivali suživot s domaćim stanovništvom. Pomoć Rabskim Židovima - ali i nemilosrdno prakticiranje moći, podjednako nad Židovima i nad stanovnišvom. Autori memoara, neki diskrenije neki neuvijeni, ukazazivali na taj „iskonski grijeh“ partizanskog pokreta: nasuprot njihovoj ideologiji „narod je vlast“, partizani su narod podvrgnuli svojoj moći. Narod se opirao - na štetu i na leđima izbjeglica. Stvoren je razdor između domaćina i onima potrebitim pomoći. Fond ZAVNOH obiluje izvještajima o sukobima domaćeg stanovništva, ali i lokalnih vlasti i vojnih zapovjednika sa židovskim zbijegovima, i pokušajeva ZAVNOH-a vrbovati za razumijevanje za Židove progonjene, internirane i predviđene za istrebljenje. Evakuaciju u Italiju nisu dočekali Židovski civili, koji su u jesen 1943. nisu htjeli napustiti Rab. Njih je sustigla njemačka okupacija Raba - što se s njima dogodilo, o tome se izjave svjedoka razilaze. Citirana literatura polazi od toga da su svi zaostali na Rabu, deportirani preko Trsta u Aušvic (vratile su se žive tri osobe). Prema drugim izvorima SS-ovi su ih transportirali u Opatiju, ali ondje, sluteći slom nacista, digli ruke od njih.

Under the circumstances of the particularly cruel prosecution of Jews in Yugoslavia, only 3,000 Jews (out of approximately 12000 Croatian Jews, 82.000 in the entire Yugoslavia) succeeded to reach the Italian "Zone I", the regions annexed to Italia. About the same number reached somehow "Zone II". In "Zone I" the refugees settled in the City of Split but the Italians had confined a number of them to Korčula, an island of the Adriatic Sea. Although the Italian authorities executed their own "Racial politics" with anti-Jewish measures, the fact remains that the Italians never committed genocide and - from 1942. on - refused to hand over to the Germans all Jews under Italian protection, not even the Non-Italian Jews. Actually, the Italians were the ones who introduced measures to protect the Jews in "Zone II" from the reoccurrence of Ustasha crimes. Although the Ustasha and above them the German authorities in the Independent State of Croatia were very persistent in demanding the handing over to them all the Jews in that Zone, the Italians, in order to avoid fruitless disputes, confined the „Zone II“ Jews to camps administered by Italian military authorities. (Dubrovnik, Kraljevica, Hvar, Brač and Rab). At the very moment of Italia's capitulation (September 8, 1943) the inmates of the Jewish and the Slovenian camp together executed the prepared liberation, disarmament of the Italian guards and takeover of the camp. A considerable number of the Jewish inmates of the Rab camp, both men and women founded a Jewish Battalion, which joined the Liberation Army, while the others, civilists, were taken by the Partisans to the liberated areas of Lika, Kordun and Banija region. The former inmates of Rab decided not to remain passive and to reconcile themselves with the crimes of the occupiers and their accomplices against them A remarkable number of them took arms to fight in the Liberation War. Among them, we find Austrian Jews, refugees since 1938 (immediately after the "Anschluss" in Austria), like musicians and lawyers, pupils and students, to participate in the liberation of the Camp of Rab and joined the Army of National Liberation. These were sent to various partisan units on the territory of Croatia or the Movement of National Liberation, in the framework of which they were committed to social welfare and education, particularly for partisans' children or war orphans, in medical care for fighters and the civil population. At the same time, while the liberated former inmates of the Italian concentration camps worked hard for the Peoples' Liberation Movement, Jews at the Dalmatian coast were hunted by the Germans and Ustashas, who had entered the city of Split (September 27) and Dubrovnik (October 1, 1943) and started to execute the "Decision of the Waannsee-gathering", the "Final solution of the Jewish question in Europe". The refugees interned yet by the Italians in the Concentration camps in the Iceland of Rab, in open Internation in Dubrovnik and on the Dalmatian islands were the more fortunate ones. The Partizans succeeded to evacuate them in time to the Lika region where the Partizans had established their regime. The cohabitation of the Jews, most of them had passed nearly one year in Concentration camps and suffered from starvation and diseases, with the local inhabitants, mostly poor and uneducated rural people, peasants, soldiers …, at least intellectuals and educated citizens. It was this traumatic experience to provoked conflicts between domestic people and the „newcomers“: The inhabitants. living with the permanent danger to be assaulted by German, Ustashi or Chetnics, plundered and deported, suffering from lack of all vital means for life and could, therefore, hardly be motivated to share with these new settlers their scarce preserves. The local authorities, "Committees of People's Liberation" (NOO) had orders from the General Staff of National Liberation (GŠ NOV) to settle these Jews on the liberated territories - and the Committee. blindly and without hesitating executed the order - without any sensibility, without comprehension for the fears of the domestic people, without respect towards the trauma of the former inmates of concentration camps, prosecuted and hunted individuals. In fact, the Partisans did not only demonstrate their power and authority, but they showed also a lack of military discipline and cruel aggression against the civil inhabitants. Yet during the war, the Partisans practised what they considered to be their right, and what they performed during the first postwar decade: raw power and no shame: to use people and to abuse them. Some authors who published their memories of their experiences of life under the partizans' control pay honour to the idealism of the „Partisans of the first hour“, however, admit that not so rarely their idealism and readiness to sacrifice themselves, exaggerated to cruelty and lack of compassion for their victims. And there were yet the others, the opportunists, the careerist the profiteers of the war - they all, and respectively their lack of sensibility for the special situation of the Jews and former inmates of Concentration camps provoked conflicts which reflect the typical antagonisms of the postwar Yugoslav societies: the latent tensions between national majorities and minorities: The Jews handled their antagonism against the Non-Jews and against Yugoslav authorities by "submerging" (Paul Benjamin Godiejev ), suppressing their conscience of a particular individuality: In postwar Yugoslavia Jews preferred to be "invisible", unrecognizable as Jews. When at the beginning of 1944 the Germans started a large offensive (from Rijeka and the Operational zone Adriatic Litoral) towards the continental Gorski Kotar and Lika regions, the Partisans' authorities evacuated the inhabitants as well as the Jews, eastwards, to the Banija and Kordun-regions. The so-called "Liberated territories", the regions under the partisans' control were liberated from the occupation forces, but not definitively pacified and assured against enemies' attacks. As a result of the escalation of the military actions against the partisans, British policy which had performed a radical "turn of mind" (refusing help for the Chetnics and supporting their enemies, Tito's partizans, allowed to evacuate the inhabitants of the endangered regions, a great part of Central and Western Croatian, to the Island of Vis, where from they should be transported to Italy. At least, neither Vis nor the allied territory in the Italian mainland was able to absorb more than ten thousand refugees from Yugoslavia. It was, therefore, that Dalmations and people from the Hinterland had to be intenerated in former British Army camps in Egypt. Actually, only those transported whom the partisans did not - voluntarily or forced - mobilise for the Peoples ' Liberation Army (elderly people, women and children). However, while the Royal (British) Airforce supported the Partizans to save the non-Jewish population, their pilots and Liaison-officers voluntarily and without clear criteria refused to take with them Jews, also younger children who were not yet mature to work, also ill and elder persons. E.g. from more than 700 children announced to be evacuated, merely 39 Jewish children were accepted to be transported to Italy. The Partisan authorities, aware of the British reserves against Jewish refugees because of their (supposed) intention to continue to Palestine, decided to enforce their institutions of social welfare, their homes for war orphans and war victims, their hospitals and ambulances and to care for people at home - last but not least as a welcomed opportunity to enforce their popularity. It must be taken into account that as a result of such quarrels between Partizans and their new "friends", Great Britain, the Jews in the Dalmatian towns, as well as those who had remained in Rab, and the others, Polish Jews and non-Jewish Polish refugees were lastly delivered to their prosecutors. In October 1943 the Jews of Split and Dubrovnik were taken to the Concentration camp in Zemun, where some of them were killed on the spot, and others sent to the Auschwitz death camp to perish there. In March 1944 Jewish women and children from Dalmatia were sent to Jasenovac and killed there. In Italy, the refugees from Croatia, inclusively some 200 hundred Jews, witnessed the difficult conditions of everyday life in the Italian refugee camps: impossible living conditions, insufficient clothing, inadequate nutrition and scarce medical care nature. Various diseases did not spare the members of the camps, especially children. Despite these troubles, the refugees themselves tried hard to fulfil it with all sorts of activities in the social, labour, cultural and educational fields that made waiting for a return to their homeland quicker to pass - and they did not persist until the return was possible. The last group of camp members from Italy arrived in Dalmatia in March 1945. Refugee camps in Italy reflect the circumstances, the inmates faced with in the camps in Egypt.