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Center of
newly
reopened
community
center in
Zagreb is a
dream come
true for
Croatia's
war-torn Jews
A
EDWARD SEROTTA
SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
Scene from a Zagreb kindergarten, housed in the new JCC.
agreb — One
year ago, in the
pre-dawn hours
of an August
morning, a
bomb ripped
through the
Jewish commu-
nity center in
Zagreb, capital of the former
Yugoslav republic of Croatia.
The street was sealed off by
police and snake-like hoses
were run into the blackened
building. No one claimed re-
sponsibility and no clues have
yet been found. Damage was
estimated well into the tens of
millions, sums the tiny Jew-
ish community decidedly did
not have.
Thirteen months later, the
street was again sealed off
by police, but instead of fire
trucks, Mercedes and
BMWs disgorged diplomats
and politicians, film stars
and dignitaries, all heading
into the glittering new Jew-
ish community center to cel-
1Z
112
Edward Serotta is a Berlin-
based photographer whose
book "In a Timeless Place:
Central Europe and its Jews
1986-1990" appeared last
year.
ebrate its reopening. Of the
5,000 guests, somewhere be-
tween the hors d'oeuvres
and the dessert trays, were
many of Zagreb's 1,400
Jews, shaking hands, kiss-
ing cheeks and beaming.
They felt they had every
right to smile. Their com-
munity center had reopened,
the bombing proved to be an
isolated incident and there
had been no further attacks.
Further, anti-Semitism was
not being flaunted in the
press or parliament and re-
cent elections showed the far
right nationalists could only
draw 5 percent of the vote.
While Croatia itself was
technically still at war with
Serbia, the killing fields had
moved to Bosnia. Zagreb, a
museum-piece of Austro-
Hungarian charms — coffee
houses, baroque palaces and
leafy green parks — was try-
ing to return to normal. The
question for Jews in the
newly emerging state of
Croatia was, what defined
"normal?"
Twelve thousand Jews
lived in the city prior to
World War II. They were
wealthy, well connected and
proudly Croatian. When
sympathies were most need-
ed, however, they were not
returned.
Yugoslavia was dismem-
bered in the war, and an
"independent" fascist
Croatia came into being,
headed by Ante Pavelic and
his Ustascha regime. Under
their aegis, nearly the entire
Jewish population was mur-
dered.
The Croatians fought
Serbs loyal to the Yugoslav
king in exile while Tito's
communist partisans fought
them all. By 1945, a full 10
percent of Yugoslavia's
population of 17 million had
died in the fighting.
After the war, Croatia re-
turned to the fold in Tito's
idea of a socialist
Yugoslavia. The tiny Jewish
communities throughout the
country, which had gone
from 80,000 to 6,500 (15,000
left for Israel in 1948), turn-
ed inward.
With no religious leaders
or teachers and few corn-
munities extant, Jewish life
looked to be withering. But
the generation coming of age
in the late 1960s, uninter-
ested in communism, be-
came the engine that drove
the communities back into
relevance. Over the next 20
years, Jews re-established
kindergartens and summer
camps, youth clubs and
sports jamborees, and re-
painted, restored and rebuilt
centers and memorials.
Some funding came from
the government. The bulk,
however, totaling in the mil-
lions, quietly came from the
American Joint Distribution
Committee, the aid-
dispensing arm of American
Jewry. Even with these
small communities, JDC ex-
perts were often heard to
say the Yugoslav Jewish
communities were among
the most active and forward-
looking in Europe.
Tito's Yugoslavia — this
union of South Slays, as it
was known — lasted only as
long as Tito lived. When he
died in 1980, Serbs, Croats
and Slovenes began staking
out territories, positions and
enemies, real and imagined.
Jews, it seems, were the