The Serbs are generally perceived to have behaved better than other nationalities in Yugoslavia toward the Jews during World War II. The second is a fear that Israeli support of NATO strikes may jeopardize the still-extant Jewish community in Yugoslavia. Both assumptions deserve closer scrutiny. But the picture is more complicated. When the Germans occupied Belgrade in 1941, a collaborationist Serb administration was set up by the Nazis in the Serbian areas. It was headed by a Serbian commander and former Yugoslav minister of war, Gen. Milan Nedic.
It was this collaborationist Serbian regime that issued anti-Jewish laws, deprived Jews of their property and livelihood, herded them into concentration camps and delivered them to their deaths at the hands of the Germans. But another Serbian former Yugoslav general, Draza Mihailovic, initiated a Serbian resistance movement against the Germans and was initially supported by the Allies. But in the complex and tragic circumstances of war-torn Yugoslavia, Mihailovic's Chetniks eventually found themselves collaborating with the Germans, and even Winston Churchill's government distanced itself from them and switched its support to the Communist-led partisans of Croat Josip Broz Tito, who later became known as Marshal Tito.
Many Jews fled to the partisans of Croatian Tito -- who represented a truly multiethnic resistance to the Nazis. and were saved by them. Tito himself was Croat and one of his chief advisers, Moshe Piade, was Jewish. Mihailovic was executed after the war as a Nazi collaborator. This is a mixed and extremely complex history and makes any blanket identification of the Serbs as being friendly to the Jews totally baseless. The fate of the existing small Jewish community in Serbia presents a similarly complex picture. Some Jews are well integrated into the Serbian government and business establishment of Slobodan Milosevic's regime: Some even act as a pro-Serbian lobby and are active especially in contacts with U.S. Jews and with Israel. (A parallel group of Jews in Croatia acts on behalf of the present Croatian nationalist government. There are, on the other hand, some Jewish activists in Belgrade who are prominent in the liberal opposition to Serbia and some of them are reported to have left for Budapest
To suggest that Israeli support of NATO operations may endanger the lives of Serbia's Jews suggests that blackmail and potential hostage-taking on the part of Serbia's government should be a guide to Israel's foreign policy. Of the once-affluent, 30,000-strong Jewish community in Serbia before World War II, less than half survived. Many more moved to Israel or to the West.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UMzniOJJGE&NR
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qClZr_ZsMe0&mode=related&search=
The Serbian government under General Milan Nedic worked closely with local Nazi officials in making Belgrade the first "Judenfrei" city of Europe. As late as 19 September 1943, Nedic made an official visit to Adolf Hitler (see picture bellow), Serbs in Berlin advanced the idea that the Serbs were the "Ubermenchen" (master race) of the Slavs.
The first stamp shows Masonry, allegorically clad as a hooded figure wearing an apron and star of David upon its bosom. This hooded figure is shown cringing from a strong ray of light, which emanates from a circular cabalistic design apparently representing the forces of Anti-Masonry. Nowhere in Masonry does a hooded figure appear. Also any Mason could readily see the fallacy of "Cringing from Light" - did we not ask for light at least three times? Then too, the attempt to link Jewry with Freemasonry is very evident by the Star of David on the figure's bosom.
The second stamp of the series shows a hand emanating from a silvery light, as in the first stamp, and grasping the neck of a huge viper whose head rests on a square and compasses. This viper or snake is covered with the Stars of David rather than scales. Biblically, the snake represents the forces of evil (Jews and Masons) and here is symbolically being stopped by the hand of Nazism.
The third stamp shows a sheaf of wheat superimposed on a cross, which has a pointed lower leg, together with the hammer, and cycle all resting upon and splitting a star that symbolizes Serbia. This attempts to show that the Jew, Mason, and Communist are alike in ideal if not one and the same.
The last stamp of the series shows a Star of David upon the curved surface of the earth between two pillars which are being put asunder by a zealous modern Serbian Samson. These pillars presumably refer to the two pillars in the porch of King Solomon's Temple.
Serbia of today and Germany in World War II offer striking parallels. Belgrade has promoted the myth of Serbian kinship with the Jews as fellow victims of Nazi oppression, while concealing the true extent of Serbian collaboration with the Nazis. It is ironic that Serbia is now seeking Jewish support in which both the idealogy and methodology so tragically echo nazism.
