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Remembrance activity by the Third Belgrade Gymnasium students - interview with Zoran Amar

12 May 2023

The students of the Third Belgrade Gymnasium, who participate in the project "Memory Lanes - Shared Interventions of Memory" which is implemented in Germany, Poland and Serbia and which is realized by the organization Centropa in cooperation with the Jewish Museum of Galicia from Poland and the Centre for Education Policy, organized an interview with Zoran Amar, director and film pedagogue, son of Vera Amar, an artist who survived the Holocaust.

The interview was held as a form of active remembrance, by which the students instigated the memory of Vera Amar.

Zoran Amar, the only child from the marriage of Vera Amar and Isak Amar, spoke in the interview about the memories from his youth, his mother's memories, growing up in the Amar family, about Belgrade in the 70s and the consequences that World War II had on the Jewish community in Serbia.

"If we talk about my grandmothers and grandfathers, we didn't have that continuity, that's why I think it's difficult to talk about it ... where family is taken for granted, in that continuity - I didn't have that, neither did they..."

 

When asked how his mother, Vera Amar, celebrated the holidays, Zoran Amar said:

"Sometimes we went to the Synagogue, but it was not regular."

 

Vera Amar, in her interview that she gave in 2000, which is on the Centropa website, she says that, at the end of her life, as a consequence of everything that happened to her, she became an orthodox Jew:

"I am happy about this, and I have peace of mind. I have balance. I go to synagogue on Friday night and Saturday and this is enough for me."

 

At the end of the project, the students of the Third Belgrade Gymnasium will make and publish a documentary film that will contain excerpts from this interview - a documentary which is dedicated to the love relationships of Jews who lived on the territory of Serbia, especially those who were married to members of other religions, and it is also infused by the events of the Second World War.

Also, parts from their film will be used to create an AR application that will contain locations in Germany, Poland and Serbia, more precisely, locations in Belgrade, which were or still are of importance to Jews who lived or live today.

The project "Memory Lanes - Shared Interventions of Memory" is funded by the Education Agenda NS-Injustice by the Foundation EVZ (Erinnerung, Verantwortung, Zukunft) and the Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF) based on a decision of the Bundestag.

The team from Serbia consists of a total of 25 students from the Third Belgrade Gymnasium, the First Belgrade Gymnasium, the Tenth Gymnasium "Mihajlo Pupin" from Belgrade, and the Technical School from Knjaževac, as well as three employees from these schools.