Sajmište as a European Site of Holocaust Remembrance

Abstract

The article analyzes the peculiarities of the destruction of Serbian Jews during Second Wolrd War in the local and European context. Of all the sites in Serbia relevant to the destruction of the Serbian Jews, Sajmiste is the most important. After the consideration of the attitude of Germans and Nedic’s regime toward Jews and “Gypsies” in the context of the Final Solution, the author highlights that the Sajmiste internment camp was transformed into a local death camp—the only such site outside the territories of Poland and the Soviet Union. Serbia was the one country outside Poland and the Soviet Union where all Jewish victims were killed on the spot without deportation. It was the first country after Estonia to be declared “judenfrei.” Moreover, in Serbia the German army was not only complicit in the Holocaust but was in fact the main instigator and executioner in the killing of the Jewish men. For this reason, in particular, Sajmiste is a unique site for Holocaust remembrance not only in the Serbian but also in the European context.