Zejneba Hardaga lived with her husband Mustafa and their children Zarifa and Salih in Sarajevo, Bosnia.
After the German air raids on Sarajevo in April 1941, the Hardaga family took in the Jewish couple Jozef and Rivka Kabiljo and their children Benjamin and Tova, after the Kabiljos were bombed out.
A few days later Sarajevo became part of the “Independent State of Croatia.” The Croatian fascist organization Ustasha took power and immediately started persecuting the Jews. Rivka Kabiljo and the children fled to the Italian occupation zone. Zejneba Hardaga procured food for Jozef Kabiljo, who was interned in Sarajevo.
When Jozef Kabiljo escaped from prison in the spring of 1942, Zejneba and Mustafa Hardaga hid him. A short time later he fled to the Italian occupation zone to join his family.
After her husband died, Zejneba remarried and assumed the last name Sušić. In 1984 she was honored by the Israeli Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations.
The Bosnian war started in 1992. With the help of Tova Greenberg, née Kabiljo, Zejneba Sušić fled to Israel in 1994.
Zejneba Hardaga with her two children Zarifa and Salih, and Tova (front), the daughter of their Jewish friends the Kabiljos, Sarajevo, 1940. Source: Yad Vashem Archives, Jerusalem, 2774/2
Right to left: Zejneba Hardaga, her friend Rivka Kabiljo with her daughter Tova, Zejneba’s daughter Zarifa, and Bahrija Hardaga, Sarajevo, 1941. Source: Yad Vashem Archives, Jerusalem, 2774/1
Tova Greenberg, née Kabiljo, greets Zejneba Sušić in Israel, 1994. Source: Yad Vashem Archives, Jerusalem, 14480476
Jozef Kabiljo, Tova Greenberg, née Kabiljo (2nd and 3rd from right), Benjamin Kabiljo (5th from left), and their helper Zejneba Hardaga, later Sušić (4th from right) at the ceremony honoring the Hardaga family in the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, Jerusalem, June 1985. Source: Yad Vashem Archives, Jerusalem, 14476307
