This is a photograph, taken in 2005, of Sara Kalef’s tombstone in Belgrade, Serbia. Sara was born in 1895 and died as a young, unmarried woman on June 11, 1915. The text on the tombstone is written in Hebrew and Serbian. The Jewish date is used for the date of death on the Hebrew text, while the Gregorian date is given in the Serbian text. A photograph of Sara is inlaid in the stone. In the late nineteenth century gravestones in Europe, especially in Belgrade, often included a laminated photograph of the deceased. Not much is known about Sara’s life except that she was a member of the Kalef family, one of Belgrade’s oldest Jewish families, tracing their roots back more than 200 years. The Kalef family lived in Dorcol, the Jewish quarter of Belgrade where they were merchants. They were Sephardi Jews who most likely arrived in Serbia through Istanbul with the Jews who were expelled from Spain in the fifteenth century.
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Jewish Community of Belgrade – Jews came to Belgrade, the largest city and capital of what is now Serbia, after the expulsion from Spain. The country switched back and forth between the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires. Most of the Jews were Sephardi (Jews from Spain), although there was also an Ashkenazi community in the city. In 1941, when the Germans invaded, there were 12,000 Jews living in Belgrade. At first, Jewish owned stores were confiscated and Jews were arrested and used as forced labourers. Shortly after, Jews were arrested and shot. Those who weren’t shot or who didn’t die from the hard labour and intense cold were ultimately killed in gas vans. About 90-95% of the Belgrade Jewish community was murdered during the Holocaust. After the war, a small number of survivors returned to Belgrade and Jewish institutions began to reopen. There is one synagogue in Belgrade today.
