BELGRADE–In the spring of 2000, Simcha Applebaum, a retired Israeli colonel, was in the southern Serbian city of Kraljevo, working on a business deal with Maja Terzic’s father.

Ms. Terzic, now 35, was then a university student in Belgrade, acting as interpreter for the two men at dinner. When Mr. Applebaum reached for a glass, his sleeve went up and Ms. Terzic saw his tattoo from Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazi death camp in occupied Poland. Read more