As told by Alex Pollak

Serbian Holocaust in the beginning…
I was born in 1933 Bosanaski-Brod, Croatia in a Mobil Oil Refinery where I lived with my father, mother and sister. I had a good childhood within the refinery and outside the gates of it and I am going to recount only the memories of the impact through the next 82 years of my life. Across the River Sava, was a town called Slavasoski Brod, a larger town with a mixed population of Croats, Serbs, some Germans and some Gypsies. Every Sunday, people from the neighborhood would go to the central square of

Current day main square Slavonski Brod, Croatia.

Slavasoski Brod to take a walk and talk and meet neighbors, family and friends. One day I noticed that some of the people had on their lapels a square patch with the Star of David inscribed with the big letter “Z” which stood for Jew. Quite frankly I saw this as a joke. Then being only 6 or 7 years old, my questions as to the patch were not answered to my satisfaction and I let it pass. The problem is millions of people, including six million Jews, ignored the signs and paid with their lives. Unlike today, the 1940s propaganda was from the Ustasha and the Nazis, but the word did travel rather quickly. However, my friends and family ignored the signs. I believe now that justice and the good laws from Moses gave the Jews the necessary signs and the means to survive. And today, as well, they are intelligent and educated enough to understand. But are the signs still being ignored? They live their comfortable lives, experience some amount of ignorance, and seem to not believe the truth; perhaps they think the events that took place were an accident of history. But for me personally and maybe for a few others, for those who survived the Holocaust and the biggest crimes against humanity in Croatia, I am made responsible to myself and my fellowman to bring the facts to light without a shadow of a doubt or hiding any of the offenses.

Similarity of Serbian Holocaust and Today…

After the war, my survival in Croatia, and then my exposure to the dangers of staying alive in the Middle East as a soldier in the Israeli Army and Military Police on the border patrol, taught me a unique and valuable lesson. I learned that in order to survive you have got to look at your surroundings, at the terrain and at the people, as well as have a bit of prophetic vision in order to know what will happen in a certain time frame. Neither I nor my mother wanted to escape from Croatia to Italy or Portugal in 1943; we stayed in the Partisan Forces to fight it out, waiting for the Allies’ victory and listening to Winston Churchill’s radio broadcasts (my mother was fluent in English). Until only ten years ago I forgot all this because I thought it was an accident of faith – but three years ago I decided it was history repeating itself and in the most horrific, dangerous and unacceptable way. While in Israel as part of the Military Police dealing with the border patrol, I had several incidents with Arabs that threatened my life. I remember vividly events that took place during border confrontations where the look in their eyes was not of peace but of evil and hate. Several attempts on my life were made by Arabs.

My Grandfather, Samuel Schmeidler, who worked for John D. Rockefeller, CEO of Standard Oil New Jersey, offered to me after my service in Israel that he would purchase for me a Mak truck so I could make a living in the new land of hope. I, however, like the truth, and after experiencing several serious attempts on my life and continuous threat of war by the Arabs, and lacking the knowledge of a foreseeable future in Israel, I had to be honest with my Grandfather. I told him my second option offered by him; I said I wanted to be educated in the US or England. I was perhaps judged as being wrong or over-zealous then in 1955, because of my statements to my Grandfather and family. But even now, it is very unfortunate that I cannot see any peace or stable future in the Middle East for the next 50 years since in 1955 my estimate was 100 years. In any case, for a family like ours, a deal is a deal; I was supported by my family and my Grandfather until I reached graduation in 1962. I did actually try to stay in Israel after my military service to study Chemical Engineering in Haifa, but like the two Jews who invented DNA and who applied to Jerusalem University, all three of us were not accepted. Only God knows why. Since 1962 after finishing my studies at Birmingham University in the U.K. I have had a very successful engineering career in Europe and in the USA. I settled into my normal life, married, with no children. Then, it suddenly came upon me in November, 2013, the need to write a book on the occasion of my 80th birthday for my family and friends. The whole past had come to me like an avalanche started by 2013 events and I realized that I had a story to tell. The present became a wakeup call that my duty before the end of my days was to tell the story as it was, as it is now, and what I really see and interpret. After all, the 1955 statement by me on the Middle East and 2013 in my book about Syria became disturbingly accurate.

Moses in his last book presented only two choices to live on. I am not Moses but I have seen and understood things I want to share. At the end of World War II, one of the most heroic and comprehensive desire of survival and victory over oppression was the uprising at the concentration camp at Sobibor (Poland). Obviously all the events, past and present, and news from CNN and other media remind me of my life travels and events the significant milestones of value for today’s events. What happened in Croatia and Europe was due to lack of government control, the hard economic times creating Fascists Nazis. The dormant misunderstanding in Croatia between various ethnics and religious groups like Serbs, Jews, and Croats created the events that took place in Croatia. Today the situation of growing threat is different, well-organized, more violent, more dangerous and more widely spread. There are two issues today: governments (men in power), and only one group, radical Islam, who want to dominate the world.

As far as I am concerned, I cannot see any explanation why the present governments that are aware of World War II, and the Holocaust, and recognize the current unrest have not taken the necessary military steps to eradicate the situation in Syria, the Middle East, Iraq, Iran, Israel and North Africa. The present use of drones and other military activities seem to have some effect on crushing radical Islam. The new immigration of thousands of people from Syria and the Middle East is creating and destabilizing the economies of Europe, especially with weak oil prices, giving total access to victory to radical Islam who have now forced the citizens of their countries to flee. This is no longer a beginning but is taking place now in an accelerating mode. Anti-Semitism and terrorist events are increasing in frequency in places like Manchester, U.K, Amsterdam and other cities. These are the signs I saw at a young age when Jews were wearing a patch to be selected for death. There is an Italian saying: “Domani e tropo tardi” – “Tomorrow may be too late.” Hence, what are we waiting for?