Spalato

KZ Spalato (Split)

Overview

When on April 6, 1941, the Italian Army occupied the town of Spalato (Split), there were 400 Jews living there, some being refugees from Austria, Czechoslovakia etc. Although Dalmatia nominally belonged to Pavelić's quisling Croatian state, the Italian army prevented his regime from persecuting the Jews, and some 3,000 refugees from Poland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia had passed through Split by 1943.

In June 1942 a mob devastated the synagogue, community offices, shops, and private houses. Under German pressure refugees were arrested and interned in Italian camps on the Dalmatian islands or in mainland Italy. When Italy capitulated in September 1943, and before the Germans entered the town, several hundred Jews crossed the Adriatic in small boats to Italy and to partisan-held islands, while others joined the partisan forces on the mainland. All remaining male Jews were made to register with the German authorities, and on October 13 were arrested and sent to the Sajmište camp near Belgrade where most of them perished. Around 150 Jews from Split died in the Holocaust. In 1947 only 163 Jews lived in Split.