Sarajevo, San Antonio & Spock
June 2001
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On June 12, 1986, Yugoslavia issued a set of stamps that included one (#1795) illustrating as page from a Haggadah, the book used at the Passover meal celebration (seder).
A few years later, as we prepared for our annual celebration of Passover, 
a column appeared in my local newspaper, written by Edward Serotta and distributed by the Los Angeles Times. The article focused on the same Haggadah depicted on the Yugoslavian stamp. Serotta described its history and what he had to go through to see it, and drew an inspiring message from it.
This so-called Sarajevo Haggadah, according to Serotta's column, was commissioned in Spain around 1350. It contains 34 miniature paintings on leather pages. It probably left Spain when the Jews were exiled in 1492. A record of its sale in 1510 (in Italy) and the approval of an Italian church censor in 1610 are noted on it. In 1894 a poor family named Kohen (a name frequently used by those descended from the priestly class) sold the Haggadah to a Sarajevo museum for a meager sum. (One account indicates it was brought to the museum by one of the children.) Its artwork marked it as a treasure and made it famous.
During World War II, the Germans sought it and dispatched a general to retrieve it. But two museum workers managed to keep it out of the hands of the Nazis. While one, a Croat, lied to the general, the other, a Muslim, spirited it away. It remained in hiding through the remainder of the war.
Serotta wrote, "Where it went during the rest of the war is a mystery. I have heard that it was kept hidden by Muslim shepherds, Catholic monks and Serb peasants."
When the Yugoslav civil war erupted in the early 1990s, the Sarajevo Haggadah was again spirited to safety by another museum worker, who had to dodge machine gun fire to break into the safe to rescue the Haggadah and to hide it again.
Where it is hidden remains a secret. When Serotta was allowed to see it, he recounts in his column, he had to sign a pledge not to reveal its location. He was then accompanied to the secret site by 11 machine gun-toting guards. Serotta noted that the Sarajevo Haggadah has become a "symbol of survival for all Sarajevans." Sarajevo survived, he said, because "while we looked on from the outside, inside the city that became a ghetto, neighbor helped neighbor, friend stood by friend."
They put into practice one of the messages of the Haggadah, which reads "This is the bread of affliction our ancestors ate while they were slaves in Egypt. All who are hungry, let them come and eat; all who are in need of fellowship, let them come celebrate Passover with us."
Remember the Alamo
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© 2001, J-Stamps/Murray Frost. All Rights Reserved.
froststamps@yahoo.com
