Jewish traders arrived in the area around Novi Sad around the 1500s, a time when Austrian and Ottoman (Turkish) forces warred for control of the area. In the late 1600s, Austria contracted Jewish men to fight in its army.

Under the rule of the Austrian Hapsburg monarchy in the 1700s, Jewish families were allowed to live in Novi Sad and build a synagogue, but were required to pay additional taxes and faced multiple restrictions. Still, Jewish migrants continued to add to the city’s the diverse population of ethnic Serbs, Hungarians and Germans.

By the 1800s Jewish residents of Novi Sad often spoke German, Hungarian and the Jewish language of Yiddish. Jews joined the Hungarian fight for independence from the Hapsburg monarchy in 1848. The synagogue, Jewish hospital and Jewish community building were all destroyed.

Although the Revolution failed, restrictions on Jewish occupations were lifted and Jewish men joined the ranks of military officers, lawyers and bankers. The Jewish community of Novi Sad continued to grow, building a new synagogue in 1851 and founding the first Jewish charity association in 1876.

Around the turn of the century, the Jewish community of Novi Sad began construction of a grand new synagogue, the fifth built at the site after previous buildings were outgrown or destroyed. Completed in 1909, the Hungarian-style synagogue was topped with a 130-foot dome. A Jewish elementary school and community center occupied the neighboring lots.

After World War I (1914-1918), the ruling Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed and Novi Sad became part of the new state of Yugoslavia. In 1921, the Jewish elementary school began teaching in Serbian rather than Hungarian. Regardless, Jews continued to face growing antisemitism from both the Serbian and Hungarian populations. After the assassination of Yugoslavian King Alexander I in 1934, all immigrant Jews were expelled from the country.

Survivor Vera Hollo was born in Novi Sad in June 1936. She remembered, “My grandfather was several times president of the [Jewish] community” and “my father was a really high-ranking officer in the Yugoslav army.” Hollo was only a toddler when Nazi Germany consolidated control over Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia in 1938, prompting a surge of Jewish immigration to Novi Sad.  

German and Axis troops invaded Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941, only a few months before Vera Hollo’s fifth birthday. Yugoslavia was divided between Germany’s allies, with Hungarian forces occupying Novi Sad on April 12, 1941. Jewish and Serbian property was confiscated, and any immigrant (non-resident) Jews were deported to Croatia and murdered. Jewish men from the ages of 18 to 45 were compelled to join forced labor battalions. Vera Hollo’s father was among those who died laboring in the Soviet Union.

The events known as the racija (raid) began in Novi Sad on January 21, 1942. Jewish homes were plundered and Jewish residents were shot and killed on the streets. On January 23 some 1,400 people were marched to the frozen Danube River, including some 400 to 500 Serbs. Soldiers broke the ice with gunfire, lined victims up in rows and shot them into the water.

Germany occupied Hungary, including the territory of Novi Sad, in March 1944. The next month, an estimated 1,600 Jewish residents were gathered in the main synagogue and deported to the killing center of Auschwitz-Birkenau, including Vera Hollo’s mother. Vera and her grandparents survived thanks to protective passports from Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.

Hollo and her grandparents endured “constant bombing and this constant fear that the Germans will come” before Novi Sad was liberated by Soviet forces on October 23, 1944. She was among the estimated 1,000 Jewish residents of the city to survive the war.