Ženi Lebl

Ženi Lebl (; 20 June 1927 – 21 october 2009) was a Yugoslav Jewish journalist, author and historian. A Holocaust survivor, Lebl is known for her autobiographical work and for her extensively documented studies of Jewish communities in Serbia, North Macedonia, and Belgrade before and during the Holocaust, and of the collaboration between Nazi Germany and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini.

Early life Ženi Lebl was born in Aleksinac, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes on 20 June 1927, into a secular Jewish Ashkenazi family. Her father was a mining engineer, and she had an older brother, Aleksandar (1922–2020). In 1933, the family moved to Belgrade. In 1940, Lebl was accepted at the First Women's Real Gymnasium, where she joined the illegal (SKOJ) ('League of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia').

World War II Following Nazi Germany's invasion of Yugoslavia and occupation of Serbia in 1941, her father was taken prisoner of war, while her mother, grandmother and other relatives were murdered at Sajmište concentration camp in a gas van. Fourteen year old Lebl and her brother Aleksandar went into hiding, and she became involved in producing Partisan literature. Lebl was arrested in 1943, she managed to hide her identity and used the false name Jovanka Lazić, passing as a non-Jew. Interrogated by the Germans and put in prison by the Bulgarians, she was deported to Germany for forced labour and later imprisoned by the Gestapo in Berlin.

Journalism career and imprisonment In 1945, she returned to Belgrade, completed secondary school and studied law and journalism at Belgrade University while working for Politika newspaper. One day a colleague told her a joke about how Yugoslavia won an international flower competition thanks to a 100-kilogram violet, alluding to the song about Marechal Tito ('Comrade Tito, white violet, the entire youth loves you'), Lebl later repeated the joke in the newsroom. On 28 April 1949, she was arrested by the secret police. From April 1949 to October 1951, she spent more than two years in prisons and labour camps, Belgrade's Glavnjača prison, Ramski Rit camp, Zabela Prison, Grgur prison and finally the Goli Otok prison. After her release, she returned to Belgrade, finding out that her name was absent from the list of the Association of Journalists of Serbia, removed from SUBNOR (the 'Union of Veterans' Associations of the National Liberation War'), that she was expelled from the School of Journalism-Diplomacy. Unable to find work she decided to emigrate to Palestine. For the next three years her permission to leave the country was denied.

Emigration and later career She emigrated to Israel in 1954 after her sixth application finally went through. The author Danilo Kiš encouraged her to write about her life. She began writing about her experiences during the Holocaust and her imprisonment under the Yugoslav communist regime. She later researched and wrote about the history of Jews in Serbia and Macedonia and published books on the subject, as well as on the collaboration between Nazi Germany and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini. She died of cancer at the age of 82.

Selected works