During World War II the Zemun Jewish Cemetery served as a graveyard for mass burials of Staro Sajmiste camp victims.

Many bodies were buried in a separate part of the cemetery marked as the place of burial of the “drowned”. In all probability a majority of these bodies were victims of raids carried out upriver in Novi Sad. In the so-called “January Novi Sad raid” of 1942 more than 1200 people were killed in the course of one day. Ironically, the “drowned” had evidently been murdered first and then thrown into the Danube to drown.

Obscured within the bounds of the Jewish Cemetery there is yet a further secret of mass burials and graves. The ground of the cemetery overshadowed by the great walnut tree has been marked as the place of burial of the “Muslims”. According to an established report the dead bodies were Muslims from Bosnia, recruits of the Handzar Division, destined for the East Front. The interred soldiers had died of natural causes during their stay in the collective campus erected beside the Zemun Railway station.

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