Zejneba Hardaga

 

(Zejneba -fourth from the right  at the Tree Planting Ceremony in honor of her Family, Yad Vashem, Israel in 1985.)

In April 1941 German Bombs destroyed the home of the Kavilio Family in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia (Present Day: Sarajevo, Bosnia and Hercegovina.)

The Kavillos were Jewish.

While walking towards their Family’s Factory that manufactured Steel Sewage Pipes they came across Mustapha Hardaga, the Owner of the Building their Factory was in.

When Mustapha heard their house had been destroyed he offered to have the Kavillos (Yosef, his Wife, Rifka, and their Children, Benjamin and Tova) stay with him and his Family.

The Hardagas were Muslim.

The Kavillos stayed with the Hardagas (Mustapha, his Wife Zejneba, his Brother Izet and Izet’s Wife, Bachriya.)

According to Muslim Tradition the Women were supposed to wear a Veil and cover their Faces in front of Strangers, but Mustapha declared that the Kavillos were now part of their Family and so the Hardaga Women didn’t have to cover themselves.

The Kavillos stayed with the Hardagas for a short time until Yosef found a house in Mostar (which was occupied by the Italians and so safer than German-Occupied Sarajevo.)

Yosef stayed behind in Sarajevo to liquidate his Factory so they would have money to live off of when he was arrested by the Ustashe.

The Ustashe were Croatian Nazis aligned with the German Nazis who went across German-Occupied Yugoslavia and arresting, torturing and murdering Jews, Serbs and the Roma and Sinti.

Due to a heavy snowfall in Sarajevo the Ustashe couldn’t transport Yosef to the infamous Jasenovac Concentration Camp near Zagreb.

Instead, the Ustashe had Yosef and other Prisoners chained together and clearing snow where Zejneba Hardaga saw Yosef Kavillo.

She brought Yosef food every day which helped him survive his he was eating grass and snails inside the Prison.

Yosef managed to escape the Ustashe and fled to the Hardaga Home.

The Hardagas hid Yosef for 2 months despite the German and Ustashe warnings of the Death Penalty for anyone helping the Jews.

Yosef stayed a short time with the Hardagas until he managed to flee to his Family in Mostar.

In April 1943 the Italians left Mostar and the Germans took over the City.

The Kavillo Family had to flee Mostar because of the Anti-Jewish Raids and they fled into the Mountains where they met some Partisans.

After the War, the Kavillo Family stayed with the Hardaga Family once again.

The Hardagas also gave the Kavillos Jewelry and other Personal Belongings that they (the Kavillos) had given the Hardagas for safekeeping.

Zejneba Hardaga's Father, Ahmed Sadik, had also hid a Jewish Family (the Papo Family who was a Friend of the Kavilio Family) was captured and executed.

The Ustahe and the German Nazis murdered 13,116 of the 14,000 Jews in Yugoslavia during the War (most at the infamous Jasenovac Concentration Camp) as well as 52,000 Serbs, 27,000 Roma and Sinti.

The Kavillos immigrated to Israel in 1950 while the Hardagas stayed in Communist Yugoslavia.

Mustapha died in the 1960s.

In 1984 the Kavillos nominated the Hardagas to become one of Yad Vashem’s Righteous Among the Nations and in 1985 Zejneba Hardaga went to Israel to accept the Award and to plant a Tree.

She was the first Muslim to become a Righteous Among the Nations.

In 1994, during the Bosnian War and the Siege of Sarajevo (where the Bosnian Serbs and the Serbs from Serbia were targeting Muslims in the City) Yosef Kavillo asked Yad Vashem who asked the Israeli Government to go into War-Town Sarajevo and get the Hardagas out to safety.

Eventually, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin became involved.

In February 1994 76 year old Zejneba, her Daughter, Sarah, Sarah’s Husband, Branimir and their Daughter, Sasha, bounded one of 6 buses with 300 Jews and left the Siege of Sarajevo and landed in Israel.

Zeineba Hardaga died a year later in 1995 in Israel.

The Hardagas had saved the Kavillos during the Holocaust and the Kavillos had saved the Hardagas during the Siege of Sarajevo.