Talk:History of the Jews in Slovenia

Controversial phrase

I think the phrase "Rampant anti-Semitism caused the Jewish population to remain small" is somehow controversial. It is true that prior to WWI. there was "rampant anti-Semitism" as well as "the Jewish population remained small": but I don't beleieve an actual link between the two may be drawn, expecially not a causal one. There was rampant anti-Semitism in Vienna or Croatia, too, yet the Jewish population continued to grow. Viator slovenicus 20:08, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Emperor Charles VI rulled from 1711 till 1740, so in 1809 he didn't invite Jews back to "Slovenia". There was no Slovenia at the time, there were just Carniola, Styria, Carinthia etc.

Only European capital without a synagogue?

I see that the JVL link indeed states this, but until 2007, it seems Tallinn held this "honour", see Tallinn Synagogue. Chesdovi (talk) 01:04, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Picture

The building of the former synagogue in Maribor - this is not former synagouge, this is Vodni stolp http://sl.wiki.x.io/wiki/Vodni_stolp Matjazz (talk) 21:43, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Exactly- the real synagogue, http://sl.wiki.x.io/wiki/Sinagoga_Maribor is about 50 meters up the hill, in Židovski Trg (Jewish Square). I will try to get a picture up as soon as possible. Frank Zamjatin (talk) 08:08, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Articles still redlink

• Klemen Jelinčič Boeta (sl)
• Berta Bojetu (sl)
• Ana Jud (sl)
• Zlata Kopač Medic (sl)

--Gevuros (talk) 13:31, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

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Highly questionable claims with no citation

Someone wrote: "Many Jews were expelled from Yugoslavia as "ethnic Germans", and most of Jewish property was confiscated". I have read a lot of sources regarding Jewish life in former Yugoslavia, and I have not see one single source make that claim. The lengthy Jewish Virtual LIbrary article on Yugoslavia makes no such claims, and also directly contradicts the claim that "most of Jewish property was confiscated", when it states that the Jews who were allowed to emigrate to Israel from Yugoslavia, "were allowed to take their property with them". I suggest that unless proof is provided for the claims in the above sentence, that it be removed Btw, here is a more complete quote from the Virtual Jewish Library about Jews in post-war Yugoslavia:

From the end of 1944, when Yugoslavia was liberated, about 14,000 Jews returned to the cities from their places of hiding, the partisan areas, and prison camps. The Federation of Jewish Communities officially reestablished its activities on Oct. 22, 1944, a few days after the liberation of Belgrade, when its surviving chairman, Friedrich Pops, reopened its office. Fifty-six Jewish communities were reconstructed, and the federation, with the aid of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) , engaged in a variety of welfare projects, including the reopening of the home for the aged in Zagreb, extending material aid to the needy who began to return to their daily lives, etc. It also reestablished its ties with the World Jewish Congress and other Jewish organizations. Upon the establishment of the State of Israel (1948), the Federation sought and received permission from the Yugoslav authorities to send material help and organize Jewish emigration to Israel. From the end of 1948 until 1952 about 8,000 Jews, who were allowed to take their property with them, left for Israel

Thhhommmasss (talk) 02:45, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

One would need to properly source the claim, but it is not basaless. First, the situation of the Jews varied substantially accross postwar Yugoslavia. In Bosnia, Serbia, and Macedonia there were strong Sephardic communities who of course wouldn't be expelled as German. In Vojvodinina and Rijeka, the matter would have been further complicated by the presence of families that had been part of a Hungarian or Italian (or Italo-Hungarian) cultural milieu, and might have suffered consequences accordingly. In Croatia, the expulsion of Jews as Germans would have been very unlikely. And so forth. As for Slovenia, such cases did occur, and given the low number of the prewar Jewish community (and even more so after the Holocaust), they might have been more than anecdotical. I know of at least two cases from post-war Ljubljana (the Moskovič and Ebenspanger families), though I'm not sure in the latter case the family's possessions were confiscated as "German" or simply as "bourgeois". But of course, we would need proper sources. I think Mladen Aleksander Švarc (and maybe Irena Šumi) wrote about these issues. Viator slovenicus (talk) 18:57, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

If there is no reliable source, the claims should be removed. Personal editor anecdotes are not allowed in Wikipedia. Many wealthy people had their property nationalized in post-war Yugoslavia, of all nationalities, and I am not aware of any special targeting of Jews Thhhommmasss (talk) 19:22, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

There were cases in which their property was confiscated as Germans (in the Moskovič case, the legal heir, a Jew, was accused of being a Nazi collaborator: https://www.casnik.si/kaksna-je-resnicna-usoda-moskoviceve-vile/ - the website itself is not necessarily the most reliable one, but the author of the piece is a highly qualified expert in the field, and it's based on archival material). If I'm not mistaken, the proper course of action in these cases is to add a template "quotation needed" (or sth. like that), and wait if some user can provide proper sources. Viator slovenicus (talk) 19:33, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Casnik is certainly not a reliable source, it is a right-wing rag that engages in collaborationist apologia. Regarding the Moskovich family the article says that they were exterminated in Auschwitz, it also mentions that all wealthy people had property confiscated, and that the confiscation of Jewish property had nothing to do with them being Jewish. The author makes some general claims that some Jews were declared Germans, but does not give one single example of that, and makes no such claims for any of the specific Jews he discusses, and further makes no mention of any Jews being expelled as Germans Thhhommmasss (talk) 19:51, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

I agree, Časnik is not a reliable source per se, but the author is: he has the scientific credentials. The quote we're discussing doesn't claim Jews were persecuted because of being Jews but because of being German, and hence targeted as (potential, inherent etc) collaborationists - the article shows (on the basis of archival documentation) just that. Viator slovenicus (talk) 20:54, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

The article states that "At the end of July 1941, in the Italian census of the Ljubljana region, some Ljubljana Jews decided to declare themselves as Germans. Whether it was fear or opportunism cannot be determined from documents. Most of them were interned by the Italian occupation authorities as early as November 1941 or in 1942" The article implies this was the case with the Moskovich family, who were later exterminated by the Nazis in Auschwitz. Thus it does NOT say that Yugoslav authorities proclaimed them to be German, but that some Jews declared themselves as such. Article also states that after the war, the only surviving Jewish relative of the the Moskovich family, Ignjat Lajtner, inherited the Moskovich villa, which he then sold in 1948 for 800,000 dinars. Thus their villa was NOT confiscated, since there was a living heir, and article says in some cases Jewish property became state property when there were no surviving heirs (btw article goes on to state that the Slovene government, which apparently rented the old Moskovich villa from the new owner, in the 1950s tried to nationalize it, because the owner would not make necessary improvements, but the Yugoslav courts disallowed this, and allowed the villa to remain the property of the private owner, who in the 1961 sold it for 13 million dinars) Thhhommmasss (talk) 21:07, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

The article stresses that the reason (or rationale) behind confiscation was not ethnic or religious in nature, but it was based exclusively on class considerations. ("Slednje /judovsko premoženje/ je delilo usodo zaplemb in nacionalizacij, ki so jih doživljali tudi drugi (nekoliko) premožnejši državljani. Pri tem odvzemu ni bila odločilna nacionalna, verska ali rasna pripadnost, pač pa zgolj razredna."). And it adds: "Therefore, it is not surprising that many a Jew was declared as a person of German ethnicity (nemške narodnosti) or even a member of the Kulturbund on the basis of the Decree of the Presidency of AVNOJ from November 21st 1944, regulating the transfer of enemy property to the state". Resuming the author's argument: it was not the policy of Yugoslav authorities to strip Jews of property, but to strip rich people of property; in doing so, they took advantage of the AVNOJ decrees which defined Germans in ethno-linguistic terms, and enabled the condiscation of their property (this makes sense since, as we know from the famous case of Lojze Kovačič, even Swiss people could be declared as "German" and expelled). This is what the article says in the part that is pertinent to this discussion. As for the Moskovič villa, he goes on explaining the specificities of the case; to sum it up, the owners were bullied into selling the house. The part of the story that is relevant for us is: the Jewish owner who was killed in Auschwitz was declared as a German collaborator - a praxis consistent with the description in the passage. It would be good to have more exhaustive sources, but the author of the piece is a respected scholar in the field of Jewish studies in Slovenia. Viator slovenicus (talk) 00:11, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

I think that until we get better sources (possibly with some quantative data) it would make sense to rewrite the sentence: instead of "Many Jews", "There were cases of Jews etc", and instead of "most of Jewish property was confiscated" - "most of the Jewish property confiscated during the war was never returned, and in many cases, it was nationalized"; we could add something like "on the basis of general legislation that targeted wealthier individuals". Viator slovenicus (talk) 00:24, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

The very case the author quotes contradicts his broader, unsubstantiated claim. It appears Moskovich self-declared as a German in the Italian census, yet the state did NOT confiscate his villa, instead they gave it to a surviving Jewish heir. So in this case no one had to make false claims Moskovich was German, he claimed it himself, yet they did NOT confiscate. Like I say this proves the exact opposite of your claims. Also I see no proof for your proposed sentence "most of the Jewish property confiscated during the war was never returned, and in many cases, it was nationalized". First the article author says NO property was nationalized because it was Jewish, but instead according to the same criteria as all properties regardless of ethnicity - the exact same rules applied to Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Jews, etc. Further, this applied only to wealthy people, and Jews were far from all wealthy, so most likely only a small number of Jews fell in the nationalization category. Second author also says some Jewish property became property of the state because there were no surviving heirs, since they were among the 87% of Slovene Jews that the Germans, including with the help of Slovene Catholic collaborators, exterminated. Thus most likely a more correct sentence would be; "The largest number of Jewish properties fell to the state because the Nazis and their Catholic Slovene collaborators managed to exterminate 87% of Slovene Jews, thus leaving no heirs Thhhommmasss (talk) 01:59, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

btw, I found information which states that the Ebenspanger villa, which both you and the author claim was confiscated, was in fact returned to a daughter, the sole survivor of the extermination of the Ebenspanger family by the Slovene Home Guard's allies, the Nazis. She then rented it first to the government, and after 1957 to the Slovene Writer's Society, which in turn bought it from the heirs of the Eberspranger family in the 90s. Thus neither the Moskovich nor the Eberspranger vila was confiscated, instead they were returned to the Jewish heirs. The author says altogether in Ljubljana 10 villas were confiscated, of which he claims 4 were Jewish, but here he includes the Moskovich and Eberspranger villas, which clearly were NOT confiscated. Thus it seems that at most 2 Jewish villas became the property of the state in Ljubljana, and if we looked into the details of these two, it may be that they were nationalized, same as non-Jewish properties, or became state properties since no family members survived the Nazi genocides, or the author is misrepresenting these "confiscations" same as he misrepresents the Ebenspanger villa "confiscation"Thhhommmasss (talk) 17:27, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

The claim that most Jewish property was never returned does not imply that this took place because it was Jewish. You are arguing against a straw man. As the article explains, the villa was indeed confiscated, then the decision was reversed, going back and forth a couple of times until the heir (designated by the State) gave up. The important part of the article is the fact that a Jewish victim of the Holocaust was retroactively charged with collaboration with Germans, so that his property could be confiscated. It is a proof that such cases did in fact occur. Whether this was a mass phenomenon is another issue (hence my suggested caution with the wording). In these procedures, reversals of decisions were not uncommon (again, I point to the well-known case of Lojze Kovačič, whose Swiss family was first expelled as German, then allowed to return). Viator slovenicus (talk) 20:39, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

In announcing the reversal, 5 months after the opposite, the court gives the reason that the owners were not absent, but were exterminated by the Nazis, and a heir was available. So this implies the initial judgment was based on a law of absent owners, who in this case furthermore self-declared as Germans, and the reversal makes no mention of any Gestapo or other issues. Since the author misrepresented the Ebenspanger "confiscation", I do not trust him on the supposed Gestapo claim without seeing the details (e.g. did some 3rd party hoping to gain the property make such accusations, since it is well known there were many such false claims). In any case the initial judgement was reversed very quick, the first time only 3 months after the confiscation judgment, and within 5 months the property was fully returned to the Jewish heir. In comparisons we still regularly see articles of Jews suing Germany, fighting to get back artwork and other property stolen by the Nazis, 80 years after the start of WWII. btw the article states the Moskovich family were sent to Auscwitz in 1944, so they may well have been among the 32 Jews arrested by Slovene Home Guard, so in this case the good Catholics of the Home Guard likely helped with the extermination of almost the entire family, while it seems like there is an attempt to make the non-confiscation the major crime, and genocide and the extermination of 87% of Slovene Jews, just a minor detail (in fact the original Slovene language wikipedia article had 2 vague sentences on the Holocaust, and spent more time on post-war property issues)Thhhommmasss (talk) 23:40, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

"Thus most likely a more correct sentence would be; "The largest number of Jewish properties fell to the state because the Nazis and their Catholic Slovene collaborators managed to exterminate 87% of Slovene Jews, thus leaving no heirs." That's a rather tortuous formulation, don't you think? Hardly an improvement, imho. Viator slovenicus (talk) 20:48, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

It is probably much closer to the truth than your claims of the vast majority of Jewish property being confiscated, for which as "proof" you gave 2 non-confiscations Thhhommmasss (talk) 23:40, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

I've read multiple sources on Prekmurje and other Slovene Jews, which include at least a dozen testimonials by Slovene Jews, and none of these mention any attempt to classify them as Germans, or any attempts to take away their citizenship while they were in Yugoslavia, or take away their property on the basis of trying to classify them as Germans (where specific taking away of property is mentioned, this is generally mentioned as part of general nationalization, which affected everyone), Thus I have not found one single example for the claims in the sentence, much less for the broader claim that this was done systematically. Thus unless some proof is provided, this sentence appears to be misleading, so I suggest it be removed Thhhommmasss (talk) 18:47, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

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