Greta Ferušić Weinfeld (1924 – 2022) – Surviving Auschwitz and the Siege of Sarajevo
On Monday 24 January 2022, Greta Weinfield-Ferušić passed away. As a Jewish woman from Bosnia Hercegovina, she survived Auschwitz and the siege of Sarajevo.
Director: Haris Pašović
Screenwriters / authors: Nihad Kreševljaković & Lejla Pašović
Camera: Christian Bushill
Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Language: Bosnian / English Subtitles
Release Year: 1997
Running Time: 86
Greta Weinfeld Ferušić is unique person who survived Auschwitz and the siege of Sarajevo.
From Auschwitz to the siege of Sarajevo, Greta Ferusic’s story envelops twentieth-century politics. Deported with other Jews from her border town of Novi Sad at age 19, Greta was the only one of her family to survive the Holocaust. After the war, she studied architecture at the University of Sarajevo and was the first woman to graduate. Later she became the Architecture School’s first female dean. When the siege of Sarajevo began in April 1992, Greta and her husband were determined to stay. Refusing to be dislocated once more, they shared in the fate of their city.
The film has been shown in different film festivals, such as Avignon, New York, London, Amsterdam, San Francisco, Rome, Stockholm, Sarajevo, Ljubljana and others.More about Greta: In February 2004, Ferušić was awarded the Polish Auschwitz Cross (Krzyż Oświęcimski), a Polish decoration awarded to honour survivors of Nazi concentration camps. She was the last person to receive this medal.
After the WWII Greta returned to Yugoslavia and married Seid Ferušić, also survivor of concentration camp, and moved to his hometown of Sarajevo in 1952. They refused to relocate during the siege in 1992.