Greta Ferušić
Born(1924-06-26)26 June 1924
Novi Sad, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (now Vojvodina, Serbia)
Died23 January 2022(2022-01-23) (aged 97)
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
NationalityBosnian citizenship
Other namesGreta Ferušić Weinfeld
OccupationArchitect
Known forSurvived both Auschwitz concentration camp in World War II and the Siege of Sarajevo in the Bosnian Civil War
Children1

Greta Ferušić Weinfeld (26 June 1924 – 23 January 2022) was a Bosnian professor & dean of architecture at the University of Sarajevo. Greta was the only Bosnian woman to survive Auschwitz and the only person in the world to survive both Auschwitz and the Siege of Sarajevo.[1]

Biography

Ferušić was born and raised in Novi Sad (now in Vojvodina, Serbia), to a wealthy Bosnian Jewish family.[2][3] She was 19 years old when she, her parents, two aunts, and an uncle were sent in April 1944 to Auschwitz. When the camp was liberated by the Red Army on 27 January 1945, she weighed 33 kilograms (73 lb).[4][5] She was the only member of her family to survive the Holocaust.

After the Holocaust

After the war, she returned to Yugoslavia and started studying Architecture in Belgrade, then later in Paris. In Belgrade she married Seid Ferušić,[6] a secular Bosniak, and moved to town of Sarajevo in 1952. She applied to be a teaching assistant at the University of Sarajevo where she also continued her studies. She later became the first woman to graduate there.[7] After graduation, she became a professor at the Faculty of Architecture, then later she was awarded to be the dean of the Architecture and directed various projects of architecture in the republic of Yugoslavia.[8]

Siege of Sarajevo

Refusing to be dislocated when the siege of Sarajevo began in April 1992, Greta and her husband shared in the fate of their city,[9] but insisted that her son, his wife, and their children leave the city[2] when a special convoy for evacuating the Jews of the city was organized on 15 November 1992 by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. She was interviewed for the Bosnian TV channel Hayat TV in 1994 for a documentary called Od Auscwitza do Sarajeva ("From Auschwitz to Sarajevo").[10]

In February 2004, Ferušić was awarded the Polish Auschwitz Cross (Krzyż Oświęcimski),[11] a Polish decoration awarded to honour survivors of Nazi concentration camps. She was the last person to receive this medal.

Greta

In 1997, Haris Pašović produced and directed a biographical film, Greta, about her.[7][12] The film producers received a grant of the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation to transform it from video format to a professional 35mm film format.[13] The film has been shown in different film festivals, such as Avignon, New York, London, Amsterdam,[14] San Francisco, Rome, Stockholm, Sarajevo, Ljubljana and others.[15]

Personal life

In 1948, she married her university classmate Seid, a Bosnian Muslim, and they settled in Sarajevo and had a son. Her husband died in 2007. Ferušić died at her residence in Sarajevo on 23 January 2022, at the age of 97.[4][16]

References

  1. ↑ Ferusic, Greta (15 March 1999). "Unafraid of War". Newsweek. Retrieved 23 January 2008.
  2. 1 2 Sarajevo: A Bosnian Kaleidoscope. Fran Markowitz.
  3. ↑ "Greta Ferusic".
  4. 1 2 Green, Penelope (8 February 2022). "Greta Ferusic Dies at 97; Survived Auschwitz and Siege of Sarajevo". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
  5. ↑ Sobreviviente del Holocausto: 'Lo importante era no volverse loco' (in Spanish)
  6. ↑ Greta Weinfeld Ferušić. Internacionalna inicijativa žena Bosne i Hercegovine. (in Bosnian)
  7. 1 2 Greta Ferusic Archived 21 August 2016 at the Wayback Machine. San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
  8. ↑ Greta Ferušić za RSE: Ovde je radio primitivizam. Radio Free Europe (in Bosnian)
  9. ↑ Traumascapes: The Power and Fate of Places Transformed by Tragedy. Maria M. Tumarkin.
  10. ↑ Datumi koji trebaju buditi razum. Al Jazeera
  11. ↑ Gitelman, Zvi. "American Jewish Yearbook 2004" (PDF). AJC. Retrieved 23 January 2008.
  12. ↑ "Greta Ferusic". Some Jewish Films and Videos. Jewfilm, Larry Mark. Retrieved 23 January 2008.
  13. ↑ "Documentary Film: "Greta Ferusic"". Archived from the original on 22 August 2016. Retrieved 5 August 2016.
  14. ↑ Greta Archived 25 August 2016 at the Wayback Machine. International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam
  15. ↑ ARCHIVES 2015 / Haris Pašović Archived 15 August 2016 at the Wayback Machine. Avignon Film Festival
  16. ↑ "In memoriam / Preminula Greta Ferušić, posljednja Bosanka koja je preživjela Auschwitz". Radio Sarajevo. 25 January 2022. Retrieved 25 January 2022.
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