1 Three Yugoslavs were honored Friday for their role in saving Jews from the Holocuast.
2 Since 1953, Gentiles who saved Jews during the Nazi terror have been honored with the title of the Righteous by the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Israel.
3 One savior and the widows of two others received Righteous medals Friday at Belgrade's Jewish Community.
4 Risto Ristic saved 10 Jewish families -- 36 children and adults -- from a raid by Croat collaborators of the Nazis in 1941 in the town of Bijeljina, now one of the Bosnian towns from which Serbs have brutally expelled many Muslims.
5 Ristic was tipped about the Croat raid, and urged the families to flee.
6 'I will never forget what you did for us,' said Rahela Vahal, 61, one of the survivors. 'I did what I felt was my duty,' replied Ristic, a 76-year-old pensioner living in Belgrade.
7 Only 17,000 of Yugoslavia's 82,000 Jews survived World War II. Most were killed in Ukrainian, Croat or German death camps, but many were simply shot in fields outside towns where they lived.
8 A second man honored Friday, Lazar Ljubicic, saved three members of a Jewish family in his native village of Zasavica, Serbia. He saved them from having yellow ribbons attached to their clothing and then got them out a day before 1,000 Jews and 200 Gypsies were executed nearby.
9 Ljubicic's widow accepted the award for her deceased husband.
10 In Sarajevo in 1941, Olga Kukovic, now 85, dyed her Jewish friend's red hair black, put a Muslim fez on his head and found his sister a veil to cover her face. With this new identity, and false papers, the two Jews fled to the Italian-occupied part of Bosnia, where there was less persecution.
11 After the war, Vukovic visited her friends in Israel. She accepted the award on behalf of herself and her deceased husband, Janko, also a savior of Jews from the Holocaust.
12 The honor of Righteous Gentle has been awarded to 109 people in the former and the new, rump Yugoslavia, said Aca Singer, 80, head of Belgrade's dwindling Jewish Community. About half of them were from Serbia.
13 Four Croats are due to receive the title in ceremonies in now-independent Croatia in February.

One savior and the widows of two others received Righteous medals Friday at Belgrade ' s Jewish Community .
One savior and the widows of two others
Who were the one savior and two others?