01.10.2017.
Jajinci Commemoration held
Jajinci was one of the most terrible death plants in Europe, that worked according to a "horrible" routine – breakfast, lunch, dinner, sleeping, shooting, president Vućić said, adding that the Serbs, Jews... all those who thought differently were brought here and that every day 300 people were thrown into the pits.
“Today we also know what Nazism is, owing to Jajinci, Jadovno, Prebilovci, and it is a long-term 'investment' in hatred. We must recall and remember the amount of death that had been produced here”, Vučić said, adding that we remember well, that we must not forget, as we must not stand in the way of a richer and happier Serbia.
As he said, "we are standing here and only consciousness can separate us from the terrifying repetition of history and farce and someone who wants to invest in hatred and death again."
“We want to invest in life and the future, in the agreements, understanding, peace and work that the peace provides”, the president of Serbia said.
There are few countries and nations in the world that have suffered throughout the history in such proportions as Serbia and the Serbs, Vučić pointed out.
The President said that there is almost no place in Serbia where at least once there was a terrible pogrom and great suffering and underlined that we experienced the greatest sufferings in the 20th century, which marked the prosperity and progress, but also the two world wars from which we came out as winners, but also paid a huge sacrifice - about half of the population suffered in them.
He asked what happened to the people who became such criminals, what made them rise up in the morning, eat breakfast, wash, and then go and shoot at some other people, tied, tortured - to the heart, the back of the head ...
"How this routine of nonsense which the victims were forced to, and the executives got used to was created" Vučić asked.
"If we would visit this place every day and leave one flower for one victim every day and say one name, we should need more than 220 years for all. And imagine how many years we would need for all the victims of all the horrors in this area, only in the last 100 years ... We do not have so much time, nobody has it”, the president of Serbia said.
That is why, we say, today in the Jajinci, because only consciousness can separate us from this repetition and make us fear enough, and in that fear to begin to invest in the future and life.
That is, the president of Serbia underlined, most important, to invest in life, agreement, understanding, peace and work secured by peace.
“And so while I stand here I know that there is no better place than this horrible one to raise the question of our dialogue about everything that is waiting for us and to ask you - look at Jajinci and the death, and tell yourself and me and the world what you want to do today and tomorrow. What should we invest in”, Vučić said.
Vučić stated that today Serbia has friends in the world, even among the states it had war with.
“Today, Germany is our friend and I consider it a success, an investment in the future, and Serbia does not and will not turn its back on friends from the East, Russia and China, nor will it forget the friendship with the African and Asian countries”, Vučić said.
As he said, by creating new and preserving old friendships, we are struggling not to repeat the dark episodes of the past, because we are fighting for the lives and laughter of each of our children.
The president underlined that we should not forget and we should not stop on the road to a better Serbia, but we must forgive.
“We do not have the right to forget all the sites where Serbs were executed, our children that were killed, we must not forget that some wanted to eradicate our seed and shed so much blood that they could not calculate how much... We have no right to forget, but we must forgive, to look into the future, for our children, so that they would not go through the same that their ancestors passed through”, Vučić concluded.
President Vučić has previously laid a wreath on a memorial in Jajinci, with the highest state and military honours.
After the wreath laying ceremony, a survivor of Ustasha camp Slavko Milanović addressed the gathered people.
It is time to call the crimes in the NDH with the real name, genocide, and that the Serbian Assembly put a declaration on genocide against Serbs, Jews and Roma in order for the victims to get respect and compassion that has not happened so far, the survivor and president of the Association of Inmates and descendants of Jasenovac Slavko Milanović said.
Milanović said at the commemoration at the Jajinci execution site that Serbia had a history "rich" with wars and that it gained the status of a suffering people. He stated that during the war, Belgrade had the largest number of detention camps, and that most victims were shot in Jajinci.
The criminals did not make the difference between young and old, ill and newly born, Milanović said, adding that they were competing in their atrocities.
“Today, we are talking about not repeating it”, Milanović said, adding that Ustashas were among the Nazis who were known for their brutality, citing the only children's camp in Sisak.
“Therefore, we speak out loud today, although we would just keep silent or scream with pain. We must do everything to keep Nazism in the past, so we must remember each victim, for it not to repeat”, Milanović said.
He stressed that the Serbs in the World War II opposed fascism, but that the fight must never stop for the world not to be brought to the brink of ruin again.
The state ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Ana Brnabić, National Assembly Speaker Maja Gojković, ministers of the Government, representatives of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Chief of General Staff of the Serbian Armed Forces, representatives of the City of Belgrade and the Municipality of Voždovac.
The gathering was attended by diplomatic and military diplomatic representatives of more than 20 countries, representatives of the National Council of the Roma National Minority, the Union of Jewish Municipalities, the Association of Inmates, the SUBNOR organisation of Serbia and a large number of war veterans.
Jajinci is the largest site of the World War II sufferings in Serbia, since the Nazis killed more than 60,000 people in the period from 1941 to 1944, including Serbs and Jews, members of the People's Liberation Movement, anti-fascists and all those who did not agree with the occupation of the country and who employed active resistance against the occupier.
The victims were brought by the occupiers from concentration camps in Banjica and from Sajmište.
The great memorial park in Jajinci, within which a monument to the victims is located, was opened on 20th October 1964, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the entry of partisan forces into Belgrade.
