-Caveat Lector- >From (e-mail-able) http://www.globeandmail.ca/gam/International/19990831/UJEWSN.html "" In April, 1944, Albanian fascists, acting on Gestapo orders, interned and plundered the belongings of 1,500 of Pristina's Jews, most of whom were sent to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Mr. Prlincevic's mother, Bea Mandil, was one of the few who escaped being deported, but her large extended family was almost wiped out in the Holocaust. "" > Targets of terrorism, Pristina's Jews forced to flee > Members of centuries-old Kosovo community > mistaken for Serbs or Serb collaborators > by vengeful Albanian paramilitaries > > MILOVAN MRACEVICH > Special to The Globe and Mail > Tuesday, August 31, 1999 > > > > Belgrade -- In a seedy hotel across the street from Belgrade's Jewish Museum, > the head of Kosovo's tiny Jewish community recalls the day two months ago when > Albanian paramilitaries armed with submachine guns came to the door of the > Pristina apartment where he and his family lived. > > "He told us to get out," said Cedomir Prlincevic, 61, a small, white-haired man > who worked as director of the Pristina regional archive. "We asked him why. He > said, 'My house was burned.' I said, 'But I'm not the one who did it.' He said, > 'I'm not interested. Get out or I'll slaughter you.' " > > By the end of June, four generations of the Prlincevic family and other Jews > were forced to flee Pristina, almost bringing to an end five centuries of Jewish > settlement in Kosovo. > > While this flight of about 40 people represented but a drop in the sea of an > estimated 300,000 non-Albanians who have fled Kosovo -- mostly Serbs, Gypsies, > and Montenegrins -- their departure diminishes the former multifaith character > of the region. > > Many Jews thought they would be spared. When ethnic-Albanian refugees fled Serb > attackers this spring, Israel was among the first countries to dispatch mobile > hospital units to help the sick. Israeli officials spoke of being able to relate > to the plight of refugees driven from their homes for ethnic reasons. > > Because Mr. Prlincevic and his family had good relations with Albanians and had > protected Albanian neighbours during the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo by Serb > forces, they believed they had no reason to flee when Serb forces withdrew. They > also believed in the guarantees of the international community and the promises > of KFOR, the peacekeeping force in Kosovo led by the North Atlantic Treaty > Organization, to protect Serbs and other minorities. > > "I had trust in the world," Mr. Prlincevic said. "I never believed for a minute > that I'd be the target of a primitive mass." > > But when heavily armed Albanian paramilitaries arrived, apparently from Albania, > the Jews of Pristina found themselves targeted and terrorized by men who either > assumed they were Serbs or had collaborated with them. > > "It's a real inquisition down there. It's not like you can talk to someone and > explain things. Those are wild people." > > The Prlincevics' ethnic-Albanian neighbours were unable to protect them from the > paramilitaries. > > "I saved two or three Albanian families during the war. When we were leaving > Pristina, my neighbour called to me. He said, 'Neighbour. Forgive me. I couldn't > help you. You helped me, but I can't help you.' " > > An envoy of the U.S. Jewish Joint Distribution Committee met with Kosovo > Liberation Army leader Hashim Thaci to seek protection for Kosovo's Jews. Mr. > Prlincevic himself wrote to Mr. Thaci seeking protection. Mr. Thaci issued a > letter ordering "the entire Kosovo Liberation Army under my control to respect > and protect all the Jews of Kosovo." But the intimidation of Jews by > paramilitary vigilantes continued unabated. > > Efforts to obtain protection from KFOR also proved fruitless. Mr. Prlincevic > sought personal protection, as president of the local Jewish community, from a > British major. The officer told him he was too busy to talk to him that day. > > "I'm not saying that KFOR encouraged this violence," Mr. Prlincevic said, "but > the forces which were supposed to protect all nationalities didn't do their > job." > > Almost all of Pristina's Jews left the city during a 10-day period in late June, > with the assistance of the Joint Distribution Committee. They are now living in > Belgrade and Vranje, where the Federation of Jewish Communities in Yugoslavia > helped them settle. The JDC supports them. > > A historian by training, Mr. Prlincevic did research in Ottoman archives in > Istanbul on Jewish settlements in Kosovo going back to the 15th century. He says > the history of Kosovo Jewry until the Second World War was one of good relations > with Albanians, Turks, and Serbs, and that there was a high rate of > intermarriage with these groups. His father was Serbian, and his wife, Vidosava, > is a Serb. > > In April, 1944, Albanian fascists, acting on Gestapo orders, interned and > plundered the belongings of 1,500 of Pristina's Jews, most of whom were sent to > Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Mr. Prlincevic's mother, Bea Mandil, was one > of the few who escaped being deported, but her large extended family was almost > wiped out in the Holocaust. > > Now in her 80s, Mrs. Mandil is proud she can still speak the Spanish she learned > in her parents' home, a remnant from her ancestors who were expelled from Spain > in 1492. > > Her large family's eight apartments and three houses in Pristina have reportedly > been looted and damaged. She now lives in a crowded Belgrade apartment with Mr. > Prlincevic and other family members. > > "It's terrible," said Mrs. Mandil, who was married in 1938. "Sixty years later, > having to start again." > > Less than half of Kosovo's pre-Second World War Jewish population of 1,700 > survived the Holocaust, Mr. Prlincevic said. Most of those that did emigrated to > Israel from 1948 to 1952. > > The continuation of more than 500 years of Jewish presence in Kosovo now comes > down to four Jews living in the environs of Pristina -- one of Mr. Prlincevic's > sons, a daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren -- and two Turkish-Jewish > families in Prizren, which comprise 22 or 23 members. > > Aca Singer, a 76-year-old Auschwitz survivor who is president of the Federation > of Jewish Communities in Yugoslavia, is pessimistic about the chances for > survival of the Kosovo Jewish community. He is disappointed that the Pristina > Jews were forced to leave "at a time of peace, with international troops > present, and when the international community's representative in Kosovo, > Bernard Kouchner, is a Jew from France." > > Although a few Jewish families from Kosovo fled to Israel on the eve of the > NATO's bombardment of Yugoslavia and five young Kosovo Jews are on a paid > excursion to Israel to explore living and studying there, efforts by Mr. > Singer's organization to get Israel to accept all the Kosovo Jews have been > stymied thus far. > > He blames Orthodox Jews within the Israeli ministries of religion and the > interior for the situation, saying that they are applying purely religious > criteria in defining Jewishness. > > Mr. Singer is disappointed that the Kosovo Jews were left out of Israel's > efforts to help refugees during the Kosovo war, when Israel sent its army > hospital and humanitarian aid, and took planeloads of ethnic Albanians to > Israel. > > He was visiting Israel at the time, and pressed interior-ministry officials to > relocate Kosovo's Jews to Israel as well. "I said, 'If there's a problem, then > accept them as Albanians, and sort out later whether they're Jews or not.' They > got mad at me." > > For Mr. Prlincevic, however, the prospect of going to Israel -- a region, as he > says, with its own ethnic conflicts -- is not heartening. If he must emigrate, > he would prefer Canada, but most of all he would like to be able to return home > with his family. > > "I can't comprehend in my 60th year, or my mother in her 81st, having to start a > new life elsewhere. I'd look upon that as a moral death. This doesn't have to do > with the Jewish community, it has to do with the right of a citizen to live > where he belongs. I belong there, however primitive or undeveloped it is." 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