| One
man's mission: the story of Zoran Mandlbaum
Some
have called him a hero, some crazy, and some "The
Bosnian Schindler" (comparing him to Oskar Schindler,
who saved hundreds of Jews during the Second World
War). One thing is clear: Zoran Mandlbaum risked his
own life to save the lives of dozens of people he
did not even know during the war in Bosnia.
Zoran
Mandlbaum has lived a life full of conflict. His entire
life was spent in the beautiful small multi-ethnic
town of Mostar in Bosnia, close to the Croatian border.
As a young Jewish boy he had to witness how the Nazis
and local collaborators murdered many of his relatives.
The monument and the graves in the Jewish cemetery
in Mostar speaks of the many innocent lives that came
to a sudden end in the 1940's. This history has haunted
Zoran Mandlbaum for all of his life.
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After
the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, many Eastern
European nations discarded years of dictatorship
and chose the path of democracy. In Yugoslavia,
however, old tensions that had remained below
the surface for decades rose to the surface once
again. The desire for independence and control
of land, and strong nationalistic feelings, led
to war between various ethnic groups. In 1992,
Serbian troops attacked the weak Bosnian forces
and started a campaign to conquer the country.
It was only a matter of time before the fighting
reached Mostar.
Zoran
Mandlbaum watched in horror when in 1993 Croatian
extremists took control of most of the city
and set up concentration camps, as they had
done fifty years before. Zoran was, by this
time, the head of the Jewish community in Mostar.
Only now the prisoners in the camps were Muslims
and not Jews. In fact, for the first time in
the history of Bosnia the Jews were not a target
in warfare. Whereas innocent Muslims, Croatians,
Serbs and Roma (Gypsies) became victims of terror
from different sides in the early 1990's, the
Jewish community was more or less ignored. While
hundreds were being killed in Mostar and many
more sent to concentration camps nearby, Zoran
Mandlbaum had to decide what to do.
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He
could have chosen to leave Bosnia and find safety elsewhere
(as many Jews did), or to stay and to make sure the
members of his Jewish community were safe. Instead he
decided to stay in Mostar so that he could help some
of the thousands of innocent people who were suffering.
After the Croatian extremists gained control over most
of the city, the Muslim population of the west side
of the city were either expelled or sent to the concentration
camps. Many prisoners were beaten, tortured, raped,
or killed. Countless others disappeared, never to be
heard from again. The rest of the Muslim population
was trapped in a ghetto on the eastern side of the city,
and lived through daily shelling and sniper fire. However,
those who happened to live in the "wrong"
neighborhood because of their ethnicity ran the risk
of losing everything, including their lives. Anybody
who now visits Mostar will immediately notice that all
of the city parks have now been turned into graveyards.
Because
Zoran Mandlbaum had gotten to know so many people
on all sides before the war, he was able to use these
friendships to "do the right thing" during
the war, as he now says. Remembering his own history
of persecution, he wanted to show that people from
different backgrounds could live together and that
there were people who cared, even if they did not
share the same ethnicity.
At
first, in 1992, he helped Serbs who had nothing to
do with the fighting to escape the city. Later, he
started a campaign to get letters and news to people
imprisoned in the camps (on both the Croatian and
Muslim sides), to get food to prisoners, to bring
together loved ones (who were caught in different
areas), and to save people at risk. Remembering how
Jews had been forced to have a "J" stamped
in their passports during the Holocaust (basically
condemning them to death), he decided to turn the
"J" into something positive. He set about
making false papers for people at risk that certified
they were Jewish. This made it possible for these
people to receive new ID cards. When border guards
and camp guards were confronted with these new ID
cards, they had little choice but to allow these people
to leave the camps or the country.
Zoran
Mandlbaum always emphasized that he tried to help
all those victimized by the war, regardless of their
background. He was the only person who, for instance,
was willing to help a Roma woman who was lying in
the street during the fighting and was close to giving
birth. However, not everybody appreciated his efforts.
Numerous times he received death threats, he was evicted
from his apartment, and his car was blown up. Asked
why he took so many risks for people he did not know,
he has often said that he felt this is what any human
should do when fellow humans are in need.
Today,
Zoran Mandlbaum continues to live in Mostar because
he feels it is his duty to help Bosnians remember
the many innocent who died, and to help build bridges
between the different communities so that Bosnia will
have a brighter future. He has helped to bring together
religious leaders from the Muslim, Croatian, Jewish
and Serbian communities.
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