Derviš Korkut



Derviš Korkut (5 May 1888 – 28 August 1969) was a Bosnian Muslim scholar and humanist. A librarian and curator of the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, he is famous for saving the Sarajevo Haggadah from the Nazis and Ustashas during the Holocaust in the Independent State of Croatia, a Nazi German puppet state in Yugoslavia during World War II.

Korkut also saved a Jewish girl, Mira Papo by bringing her into his family and hiding her identity. When he refused to join the Communists after the war he was sentenced to prison for several years. He was released, but his civil rights were never restored. After his release he continued his job as curator of the Museum of the City of Sarajevo until his death in 1969. Together with his wife, Serveta Ljuž, he was proclaimed Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 1999.

Biography
Korkut was born on 5 May 1888 in Travnik to father Ahmed Munib Korkut and mother Šahida (née Biščević). He was part of a prosperous family who descended from Korkut Beg, a Turk ulama who moved to Bosnia during Ottoman rule. He had four brothers and five sisters. One of his brothers, Besim, who was an Arabic professor, translated the Koran into Serbo-Croatian. Early in his life, Korkut wanted to become a doctor, but after urging from his parents to continue learning, he went to study in Istanbul and at the Sorbonne. In addition to Serbo-Croatian, Korkut spoke Turkish, Arabic, French and German.

He was mobilized into the Austro-Hungarian army in July 1917 as a military imam at the rank of II Class captain. He worked as a chief in the Muslim section of the Ministry of Religions in Belgrade from 1921 to 1923, when he was forced to resign due to pressure from members of the People's Radical Party.

From September 1923 to October 1925 he was Secretary of the Yugoslav Muslim People's Organization, gathered around Ibrahim Maglajlić. From 1927 until his appointment for the Travnik mufti in September 1929, he worked as curator of the National Museum. The Law on the Islamic Religious Community later abolished the muftis of Travnik and Bihać. Until 1937 he worked as a curator of the Cetinje Museum and at the Supreme Command of the Islamic Religious Community. In 1940 he married Serveta Ljuža, an Albanian from Kosovska Mitrovica. With her, Korkut had three children.

On 6 April 1941, Yugoslavia was invaded by the Axis powers of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. After a short campaign, the Yugoslav Army surrendered on 17 April, after a short campaign that lasted barely 12 days. The Nazis established the Independent State of Croatia (Serbo-Croatian: Nezavisna Država Hrvatska or NDH), a puppet state that controlled all of modern-day Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and parts of Serbia, led by dictator Ante Pavelić. His Ustaše militias became notorious for their violent policies against the Serb, Jewish and Roma populations in the region.

In early 1942, the German commander Johann Fortner arrived in Sarajevo to take the Sarajevo Haggadah. Korkut grabbed the Haggadah from the vault, after which he tucked in his coat just minutes before the general arrived. During a meeting in the museum office, Fortner demanded the employees to hand over the manuscript. The employees convinced him that a German officer already had the manuscript, but refused to disclose who possessed it. Later that afternoon, he drove out of the city to a remote village where he gave his friend who was imam of a local mosque the book The Haggadah was hidden among Korans and other sacred Islamic texts where it was saved from destruction. It was returned intact to the museum at the end of the war.

In April 1942, Korkut came across Mira Papo, a nineteen year old Jewish girl. Mira and her family were previously arrested by the Ustaše and was taken to a women's camp. Her father Salomon, who worked as a custodian in the Finance Ministry was taken to the Jasenovac concentration camp, where he perished. Mira escaped and joined the Yugoslav Partisans shortly afterwards. However, many of her comrades were killed and Papo returned to Sarajevo where she came across a friend of her father's who sympathized with her situation. Korkut heard about her and snuck her out to his home. She was given a veil and the Korkuts said she was a girl named Amira who was a house servant. Servet reflected in 2007 that both were nineteen years old and became friends saying, “I told her if anyone came to the door she should go to the pantry. In spite of the immense risks, I loved having someone my own age around. She called me Auntie Servet.”

Derviš and Besim also contributed to the signing of a resolution condemning atrocities committed against Serbs and Jews living in the NDH. Mira stayed with them for months until August 1942, when a family member living in the Italian occupied zone gave her a train ticket to travel toward the Adriatic where she hid out for the rest of the war. The Italians interned Jews escaping from the Nazis and Ustaše, but they were treated better and allowed sanctuary. In 1999, Derviš and Servet were awarded the Righteous Among the Nations for their actions during the Holocaust.

Derviš was tried after the war and convicted of allegedly collaborating with the Nazis in a show trial, because he refused to join the communist party. Mira heard about the trial after coming across Servet, who begged for her to help them. Unfortunately, Mira's attempts to testify on his behalf were rebuffed. After serving six years in prison, he was released, but his civil rights were never restored. He continued his work as curator of the Museum of the City of Sarajevo until his death on 28 August 1969, age 81.

Mira and her family made aliyah to Israel in 1972, joining a kibbutz. Korkut's surviving family were impoverished and blacklisted for most of the communist regime and moved back to Albania for a while before returning to Sarajevo. Servet was forced to flee Sarajevo with her children in 1994 during the siege. The two got in contact with each other, during which Servet forgave Papo saying that even if she did testify, the jury would have not changed their verdict. Papo died in 1998. Servet passed away on 9 September 2013 at the age of 92.