On the occasion of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Historical Archives of Sarajevo prepared the exhibition “Remembrance of the Holocaust in Sarajevo through the documents of the Historical Archives of Sarajevo” which opened today in the City Hall.
Ismeta Džigal, acting director of the Historical Archives of Sarajevo, reminded that this year the institution marks 75 years of successful work.
– With the exhibition ‘Remembrance of the Holocaust in Sarajevo through the documents of the Sarajevo Historical Archive’, organized on the occasion of January 27, the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, the Historical Archive begins marking its 75th year of work and existence – said Džigal, adding that a small part can be seen at this exhibition historical sources testifying to the suffering of Jews in Sarajevo during the Independent State of Croatia.
Senior archivist Admir Nezirović said that the documents from the archive’s funds related to the suffering of the Jews of Sarajevo from 1941 to 1945 are exhibited.
Nezirović reminds that in Bosnia and Herzegovina after the establishment of the so-called In the Independent State of Croatia on April 10, 1941, Jews were exposed to different stages, starting with dehumanization, then putting the community outside the legal framework and establishing special legal norms, and ending with mass deportations, arrests and executions as the final act of the entire process of destruction.
– Propaganda was also working at full steam. The Jews were accused of everything bad in the world at that moment, all with the aim of creating some imaginary enemy. And in that way, the public was prepared for what will happen to those people – said Admir Nezirović.
Speaking about the examples of propaganda that can be seen at this exhibition, Nezirović underlined that the propaganda posters were probably created in Germany.
The President of the Jewish Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Jakob Finci, emphasized the importance of the work of the Sarajevo Archives, which marks its 75th year of operation.
– We became aware of how important archives are late. Coincidentally, tomorrow is International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, so this exhibition is also dedicated to that greatest tragedy of the twentieth century, in which six million Jews and several hundred thousand Roma, children, disabled people and others who perished simply because did not fit into fascist schemes – said Finci.
In the catalog of the exhibition, among other things, it is stated that the Holocaust, the Shoah or the “great calamity” is the name for the systematic persecution and genocide of the Jews. The planned and organized persecutions, imprisonments and murders carried out from 1939 to 1945 led to the death of two thirds of the nine million Jews living in Europe.
All sufferings were recorded and documented through a series of historical records, documents, official and personal observations and represent one of the darkest moments in human history in which even children were not spared, which further darkens the whole story. According to statistics, around 1,308 children died in the area of Sarajevo alone during this period, Fena reports.
