Annihilation of the Jewish community of Bijeljina

Bijeljina, on the Semberie plain between the Sava and the Drina, was home to a long-established Sephardic Jewish community that lived by trade. When Bosnia was annexed by the Ustasha state, it fell under the racial decrees of that spring: within a matter of weeks, the community lost its property, its rights, and its freedom of movement. Raids carried out by the regime's local militia followed one after another through the summer and autumn. The Jewish inhabitants of Bijeljina were taken to the camps opened in Slavonia, on the other side of the Sava, where most of them perished. The community never reconstituted itself.