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This introduction is based on the book Dead-End Journey: The Tragic Story of the Kladovo-Sabac Group, by Dalia Ofer and Hannah Weiner. This book is the 14th volume of "Studies in the Shoah" published by the University Press of America, Lanham, MD. This book is a translation of the original, which appeared in Hebrew. The section on the Jews of Sabac is from Pinkas HaKehillot. This list combines Holocaust victims from very different backgrounds: Austrian and German Jews and the Sephardic community of Sabac, Serbia. Both groups suffered the same fate.
The leaders of the Hechalutz Zionist youth organization in Austria decided to organize the last of their people in the training camps to go to Palestine on an "illegal" emigration in November 1939. A group was organized which included youth from the movement in Austria, Germany and Danzig. Many other refugees, with no connection to Hechalutz, were added to the group. The group traveled to Bratislava on 24-25 November, 1939. In the beginning of December, the group boarded the ship "Uranus". Their plan was to sail down the Danube River to the Rumanian port of Sulina, near the river’s mouth on the Black Sea, and from there take a ship to Palestine. From this time on, the group suffered many trials and setbacks. There were bureaucratic problems that the Mossad l’aliya Bet (organization for illegal immigration) had in procuring a ship to take them from the Black Sea to Palestine, and additional problems caused by the restrictions on aliya made by the British Mandatory regime in Palestine. Through the whole period, many different Jewish organizations tried to help them continue to Palestine, but to no avail.
The following is a chronology of the Hechalutz group:
Early December, 1939 -- Boarded the ship Uranus. Sailed to Gyor, then back to Bratislava. December 12 -- Continued on the Uranus to Bezdan. December 14-15 -- Transferred, mid-river, to the three Yugoslav boats Kraljica Marija, Car Dusan and Car Nikola at the Yugoslav-Rumanian-Bulgarian border and then back to Pahovo. December 31 -- Boats dock at their winter mooring in Kladovo. The refugees live on the ships. January 1940 -- A barge is added to the three ships to give extra living space. May -- The boats sail. Most of the refugees are moved to towns, where they are put up in farmers’ houses. Some live on the "Penelope" barge. September 19 -- The refugees are moved by barge and boat to Sabac, apparently because the Yugoslav authorities feared clashes between them and ethnic Germans ("Volksdeutsche") who were traveling through the area. The refugees were housed in two large buildings - a former flour mill and wheat storehouse. All through this period, the needs of the refugees were taken care of by the "Federation of Jewish Communities in Yugoslavia," mostly from money received from the JDC. The refugees organized cultural activities, lessons for the children and other activities. Many of the testimonies also mention that the local Serbian population was very friendly toward the group. The refugees were continuously promised that the continuation of the trip toward Palestine was coming soon. March 1941 -- Some of the group, mostly children and youth, succeed in getting legal permits to enter Palestine and leave Sabac. July 1941 -- As a result of the German occupation of Serbia, the refugee group was moved to an old fortress on the Sava River near Sabac, which was transformed into a concentration camp. August 1941 -- The local Jews of Sabac are sent to the Sava camp. September 26 -- Male residents of Sabac, along with the male prisoners of the Sava camp, are taken to the town of Klenak. They are forced to run 23 kilometers to Jarak in Croatia. Those who lagged behind were shot. The Jews return to the camp on September 30. October 11 -- The Jewish men (together with Gypsies and some Serbs) are taken to the Seniak Camp. October 12-13 -- The men are taken to Zasavica, where they were shot in front of a pit that became a mass grave. January 26, 1942 -- The woman and children are moved to Sajmiste. Some died en route on a forced march from Ruma. March-May 1942 -- The women are murdered in a gas van and are buried in Jajinci. 1943-1944 -- A group of Yugoslav prisoners are forced to burn the remains of those buried in Jajinci. June 12 1945 -- The mass grave at Zasavica is opened. The Jews are removed and buried in the Jewish cemetery in Sabac. 1959 -- The remains are moved to the Sepharadi cemetary in Belgrade. Other Information About the Community of Sabac:
Sephardic Jews came to Sabac in the first half of the 19thcentury, where they engaged in trade. In 1865 two Jews in the town were murdered, a case which brought international Jewish attention and the intervention of foreign consulates. A synagogue was built in 1895. In 1940, there were 83 Jews in Sabac.