Obj. ID: 52342
Memorials Holocaust Memorial to the Victims of the Kladovo Transport in the Sephardi Jewish Cemetery in Belgrade, Serbia, 1964
To the main object: Sephardi Jewish cemetery in Beograd, Serbia
Name of Monument
Kladovo Transport Grave and Memorial
Who/What is Commemorated?
Victims of the Kladovo Transport
Description
A mass grave for the exhumed remains of the victims of the Kladovo Transport was established at the northeast edge the Sephardic Jewish Cemetery in 1959. The simple and elegant memorial designed by Anri Meshulam was dedicated at the site in 1964. The overall design combines elements of a public plaza and a private room. The central element of the monument is a grey stone wall adorned with a menorah sculpture and well as an inscription written in Hebrew, Serbian and German.
The monument terminates a path that crosses the central axis of the cemetery. From a distance one sees the monument framed by cypress trees that line the path, and then more clearly as one approaches, a plaza-like platform terminated by a large gray stone wall. The platform is raised one step above the path and is paved with square slabs of grey veined stone (marble?). To the left the level rises one step to a second open space, lined with benches. To the right, set on the platform, is a white stone planter, roughly the size and shape of a traditional horizontal Sephardic “box” tomb.
The memorial wall is comprised of the same type of square slabs of gray stone as the pavement. These show a variety of striations that together create an unpredictable pattern across the wall surface. The wall rectangle has a ratio of two to one; it is 12 squares wide and 6 squares high. The left side of the wall has three narrative and dedicatory inscriptions in Serbian, Hebrew, and German. The right side of the wall is adorned with a metal relief of a seven-branch menorah set halfway up the wall. This prominent symbol is the memorial’s only decoration.
The left-hand space, walled on three sides, resembles a room or suggests a sanctuary - literally a house of gathering (bait ha-knesset). It is bounded on each side by walls made of cut limestone blocks laid in even courses, though the courses vary in height. The stones are finely cut but left with rough surfaces. The central wall that one faces as one turns into the space is the same height as the side walls but covered in plaster. In the center of this wall is a two-line Hebrew inscription (Jeremiah 8:23). Low stone unadorned benches protrude from each side wall, linked by a low stone platform in front of the central wall. The effect of the space is both somber and soothing. The positioning of the benches suggests both a prayer room, but also – especially given the meaning of the Hebrew inscription - an intimate domestic space with low benches where one would sit Shiva during the traditional period of mourning.
Inscriptions
On large wall:
Hebrew:
במקום זה נקברו שמונה מאות קדושים
מאוסטריה שנהרגו באכיזריות בעיר
שבץ ביום שבת קודש ד' לחודש מרחשון
תש''ב על ידי הרוצחים הנאצים ימ''ש
בדרך עליתם לארצנו הקדושה
גלעד זה הוקם לזכרם על ידי הקהילה
היהודית בוינה
זכור, אל תשנח
Translation: On this site, there were buried eight hundred martyrs from Austria who were brutally murdered on their way to the Holy Land, in the town of Šabac on Sabbath day, Marcheshvan by Nazi murders, may their names be obliterated. This monument was built in their memory by the Jewish Community of Vienna// Remember, never forget
Serbian:
ОВДЕ ПОЧИВАЈУ ПОСМРТ НИ ОСТАЦИ
ОСАМ СТОТИНА ЈЕВРЕЈА ИЗ АУСТРИЈЕ
КОЈИ СУ НА СВОМЕ ПУТУ ЗА СВЕТУ
ЗЕМЉУ 25. ОКТОБРА 1941 У ШАПЦУ
МУЧКИ УБИЈЕНИ ОД НАЦИСТИЧКИХ
ЗЛОЧИНАЦА
ОВАЈ СПОМЕНИК ПОДИЖЕ ЈЕВРЕЈСКА
ВЕРОИСПОВЕДНА ОПШТИНА У БЕЧУ
ДА СЕ НИКАДА НЕ ЗАБОРАВИ
Translation: Here rest eight hundred Jews from Austria, who were on the road to the Holy Land, when brutally murdered by Nazis in Šabac on October 25, 1941. In their memory, the Jewish Community of Vienna built this monument. Never forget
German:
HIER RUHEN ACHTHUNDERT JUDEN
AUS ÖSTERREICH DIE AUF DEM
WEGE IN DAS HEILIGE LAND VON
NAZISCHERGEN IN SABAC AM
25. OKTOBER 1941 MEUCHLINGS
ERMORDET WURDEN
IHNEN HAT DIE ISRAELLITISCHE
KULTUSGEMEINDE WIEN DIESES
DENKMAL ERRICHTET
NIEMALS VERGESSEN
Translation: Here rest eight hundred Jews from Austria, who were on the road to the Holy Land, when brutally murdered by Nazis in Šabac on October 25, 1941. In their memory, the Jewish Community of Vienna built this monument. Never forget
On wall of “room” with benches:
מי יתן ראשי מים, ועיני מקור דמעה
ואבכה יומם ולילה, את חללי בת עמי
ירמיה ח כג
Translation: Oh that my head were waters, And mine eyes a fountain of tears, That I might weep day and night For the slain of the daughter of my people! Jeremiah 8:23
Commissioned by
Federation of Jewish Communities of Yugoslavia with Jewish Community of Vienna (Austria)
16 image(s)
sub-set tree:
| Sephardic Jewish Cemetery Mije Kovačevića 1, Beograd 11000, Serbia
bronze
Central wall is approximately 2.80 m high x 6 m wide.
The “plaza” platform is approximately 5.5 m deep, and 5.75 m wide.
The “room” with benches is approximately 5.75 m wide and 5.75 m deep (to platform)
The platform is approximately 1.90 m deep
The Kladovo Transport was a group of roughly 1,200 mostly Austrian Jews who had sailed from Vienna on a ship on the Danube River, intending to reach the Black Sea and onwards to Palestine.
Because of river ice and Romanian officials denying passage, the passengers were forced to disembark at Kladovo, Serbia, where they lived for several months. In 1941, the group was relocated by Serbian authorities to the Šabac Concentration Camp. In October of 1941, the men of the Kladovo Transport were executed at the camp by Nazi troops as part of reprisals for Partisan attacks. In January of 1942, the remaining women and children of the transport were forced to march through the snow to Sajmište Concentration Camp in Belgrade. Many died along the way. Those who survived were later killed at the camp in gas vans.
Since most of the victims were from Austria, and the rest from Czechoslovakia and Poland, the Jewish community of Vienna asked in 1952 to retrieve the remains of those buried in Zasavica village. When this proved impossible despite repeated diplomatic efforts over several years, the Vienna community authorized in 1959 the relocation of the remains from Zasacvica to Belgrade, where in cooperation with the Federation of Jewish Communities of Yugoslavia, they were reburied in the Belgrade Jewish cemetery. A symbolic consecration of the grave was set for November 9th, the anniversary of Kristallnacht, but this was put off due to delays in the exhumation of the remains. A ceremony in which approximately 900 victims were laid to final rest took place on December 27, 1959. Belgrade architect Amri Meshulam was hired to design a memorial atop the grave, which was dedicated on November 1, 1964.
Panić, Barbara. Spomeničko – Memorijalni Kompleks Jevrejskog Groblja u Beogradu / Burisal Ground Complex of the Jewish Cemetery in Belgrade (Belgrade: Jewish Historical Museum, Federation of Jewish Communities of Serbia, 2018)
Weiner, Hana and Dāliyyā Ôfer, Dead-End Journey: The Tragic Story of the Kladovo-Šabac Group (Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1996)