Milenković Svetozar & Vida (Petrovic)

Milenković, Svetozar Milenković-Petrović, Vida Petrović, Aleksandar When the Germans entered Belgrade in April 1941, they began to enforce their racist policy against the Jews as they did in the other German-occupied states. In addition to the restrictions on Jewish life, the expropriation of their property, forced labor, etc., they also began arresting Jews. At first, they only arrested the men. They gathered them into the Topovske Šupe camp and later murdered them. Then it was the turn of the women and children, who were at first taken to the Sajmište camp on the Sava River, opposite Belgrade, and murdered in gas vans. Every Jew looked for a way out, and that was also true of the Fenje family, the parents and their two children. They fled to the town of Raška in southern Serbia, where the father Josef (Josip) worked as a veterinarian. In December 1941, persecutions of Jews began in that area too: the yellow badge, the requirement to report to the police every day, and finally, eviction from their homes. Fearing they might suffer the same fate as the Jews of Belgrade, the Fenjes sought refuge. Many who had been their close friends or good neighbors for years ignored them, except for Vida and Svetozar Milenković. Svetozar was an Orthodox priest and the son of a priest, and he took them into his home with their belongings. They remained there for some time and hiding places in nearby villages were found for them. First the Milenkovićs organized the transfer of the father, Dr. Fenje and his daughter, Magda. After this succeeded, Aleksandar Petrović, Vida’s brother, a 24-year-old university student with leftist and anti-German views, took the mother Hermina and the second daughter Iza, to the villages, where they were taken in. The Raška area was dangerous because fierce battles were raging there between partisans and the Germans at the same time as the Germans were still constantly carrying out searches for Jews and for others who were cooperating with thepartisans. Throughout the war years, the Fenjes survived, moving from place to place dressed in Serbian village clothing. At a certain stage, Aleksandar, however, was caught and sent to the Mauthausen camp. Some time later, on June 29, 1944, he was taken together with other prisoners to the Hartheim palace near the camp, and murdered in a gas chamber there. On October 24, 2002, Yad Vashem recognized Svetozar and Vida Milenković and Aleksandar Petrović as Righteous Among the Nations.