N. Macedonia marks destruction of its Jewish community

North Macedonia is commemorating the deportation of almost the country’s entire Jewish community to the Nazi death camp of Treblinka with a ceremony in the capital, Skopje.

The Holocaust Memorial Center in Skopje unveiled its permanent exhibit Monday, 76 years since 98 per cent of the Jewish population of what was then a province of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was rounded up and transported to Treblinka, in occupied Poland. A 500-year-old Torah scroll, smuggled from Spain when the Jews fled the Inquisition to settle in the Balkans, is part of the exhibit.

The German occupiers turned over the province to their Bulgarian allies to run. More than 7,100 Jews from Skopje, Bitola and Stip were confined to ghettos ahead of transportation to the death camp.