The Jewish community of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, has vowed to use all legal means to prevent the rehabilitation of the country’s Second World War-era Prime Minister Milan Nedic, who they say participated in the Holocaust.
Nedic was prime minister from 1941 to 1944, a period during which the country was occupied by Nazi Germany. He was declared a war criminal by the Yugoslav Communist authorities after the war.
About 90 per cent of the Jewish population in Serbia was murdered while Nedic was in power and Belgrade was the first city in Europe to be declared free of Jews.
Haris Deutsch, a member of the Jewish Community of Belgrade, said on Monday that the organisation would call witnesses to testify about Nedic’s active participation in the Holocaust at the ongoing rehabilitation hearings.
“Rehabilitation would represent a devaluation of indisputable historical facts, and an insult to all the victims and survivors of the Holocaust,” Deutsch said. “Serbia would also suffer moral and political damage.”
