Skopje, 11 March 2024 (MIA) – The 81st anniversary of the deportation of 7,144 Macedonian Jews to the Treblinka extermination camp is being commemorated by laying wreaths at the monument at the former Skopje Monopoly on Monday.

President Stevo Pendarovski, caretaker Prime Minister Talat Xhaferi, Jewish Community President Pepo Levi, and the Israeli Ambassador to North Macedonia, Simona Frankel, laid flowers and addressed the commemorative event.

"Today we pay tribute to the 7,144 Jews from Macedonia. To Maria, Pepo, Zholi, Besale, Dora, David, Rufel, Yakov, Boena, Mari, Esther, and many other Jews from Macedonia, who were killed in the Treblinka death camp. 7,144 Jews from Shtip, Bitola, and Skopje never again saw their hometowns," said Pepo Levi, President of the Jewish Community, in his address.

Caretaker Prime Minister Talat Xhaferi said that their presence isn’t to reopen wounds of the troubled past, but to send a message ensuring such events never occur again. He emphasized their solidarity with the stance of "no" to any form of intolerance, anti-Semitism, fascism, aggression through exclusion, and hate speech.

Israel’s Ambassador to North Macedonia Simona Frankel also delivered remarks, noting that this year’s commemoration of the deportation of the country’s Jewish community to Nazi camps carries a new and deeply significant meaning for Israel. She underscored her reluctance to draw parallels between the Holocaust and the events of October 7.

"The first represents the greatest tragedy in modern Jewish history, while the second marks the worst day for Israel since the establishment of our state. We cannot ignore the fact that, if the state of Israel had existed, the Holocaust might not have occurred. It has been 81 years since March 11, 1943, when the Jewish communities of Skopje, Bitola, and Shtip were taken to the Monopoly building and imprisoned in provisional transit camps as a result of a well-planned operation," Frankel said.

"I here represent not only the democratic independent state of Israel, the home of the Jewish people, but also speak on behalf of the descendants of the Jewish community living in Israel today, particularly the 7,144 men, women, and children, entire families tragically who did not live to witness the formation of our state," she added.

“On the evening of March 11, 1943, they were loaded onto trains by the Nazi occupation regime and sent to Treblinka extermination camp, where all were killed in the gas chambers,” Frankel said.

Photo: MIA