Obj. ID: 50022
Modern Jewish Art  "The Family" Holocaust Memorial in Novi Sad, Serbia, 1971

The memorial commemorates the victims of a pogrom called Razzia, also known as the Novi Sad Raid, which took place between January 21 and 23, 1942. It was part of a wider campaign in the southern Bačka region carried out by fascist Hungary when the local Jewish, Serb, and Roma populations were murdered. The estimated number of victims was 1,300 individuals, 874 of them Jews. 

The raid left a deep scar on the people of Novi Sad, yet it took the authorities three decades to begin commemorations of the event in an organized and systematic way. The first commemoration was held in 1945, and then until 1967, there were no organized ceremonies. Although the Municipal Committee of the Veterans' Federation issued a proclamation in 1947 to erect a monument, it was decided that this would disrupt relations between Yugoslavia and Hungary and cause interethnic tensions or even violence. Again after 1967, the commemorations ceased in response to the Six-Day War when Yugoslavia and Israel canceled formal bilateral relations. During this period, citizens remembered their loved ones in the privacy of their homes or in private ceremonies on the banks of the Danube. The Jewish community organized annual commemorations on its premises.

The sculpture “The Family” was made in 1956, and it was first exhibited in 1958 in two group shows (in Novi Sad and Belgrade). Yet, despite the fact that it was highly acclaimed by art critics, the sculpture was set aside in the artist's studio and untouched for more than one decade.

In 1969, the Novi Sad municipality acquired the sculpture and cast it in bronze. The monument was unveiled on October 23, 1971 (Novi Sad’s Liberation Day). Associations of Veterans of the National Liberation War and city officials organized the ceremony. From the opening speech we can see that despite the fact that the focus of the commemoration was on the raid victims, it was intended to explicitly commemorate all Novi Sad’s victims of fascism, who were placed in the context of the national liberation struggle, even though they perished as civilians.

Annual commemoration ceremonies marking the anniversary of the raid have been held by the memorial since 1972 and attended by hundreds of the city’s residents. The official ceremonies in which city officials, military representatives, war veterans, former prisoners of war, and representatives of the Socialist Alliance of Working People of Yugoslavia participated, contained no religious nor ethnic context or content. Therefore, Novi Sad Jews would afterward gather in the community hall to commemorate their dead with the El Maleh Rachamim (“God Full of Compassion”) and Kaddish mourning prayers.

The monument was supplemented in 1992 with 78 bronze plates, created by the same author. It was several times a target of vandalism. In 2007, 4 plaques carrying the names of the victims were torn off the embankment. On 20 January 2022, a plaque on which the word “Cigani” (Gypsy) was used was replaced by a new one using the word “Romi” (Roma). The initiative to correct the text on the memorial plaque was submitted by the Vojvodina Roma Center for Democracy and was supported by other Roma organizations. The monument also underwent thorough cleaning in 2022.

Commemoration ceremonies honoring the victims of the Novi Sad Raid are held in front of this memorial annually between January 21 and 23. Commemoration ceremonies have been organized by the city officials, the Jewish community, Orthodox Church, and Roma organizations, along with the Federation of Jewish Communities of Serbia and the Embassy of Israel, and have been attended by hundreds of the city’s residents.

The monument has been proclaimed as an immovable cultural good of great importance.