Holocaust Remembrance Day

The Remembrance Day for Holocaust and genocide victims and other victims of fascism was marked today at the Genocide Victims Memorial on the site of the former Staro Sajmište.

Honors to the victims were paid by the survivors of concentration camps, members of the victims' families, officials of several ministries and diplomats, associations, and citizens, by a wreath-laying ceremony at the Nazi German concentration camp. The ceremony was also attended by representatives of the Association of Jewish Municipalities in Serbia and the Roma Minority Council.

On behalf of the Government, wreath was laid by Minister of Defence Bratislav Gasic, accompanied by Brigadier Generals Zeljko Ninkovic and Predrag Simovic.

At the central commemorative ceremony, Gasic stressed that Staro Sajmiste is the place where, seven decades ago, humanity was silenced, and crime and darkness overpowered the mind. He reminded that this concentration camp was one of the first ones in Europe, forever remembered as one of the cruelest, where thousands died in worst suffering.

– It is because of all these innocent victims, each of the taken lives that we must not forget all that happened in this and other concentration camps. We pay our respects to the victims and remember who the culprits were and who and why the victims were – Gasic said, stressing that every third man who entered Staro Sajmiste never left the site, while others were sent to concentration camps Banjica, Trepca, Jasenovac or those in Germany, Poland and Austria.

Minister conveyed his regret that Belgrade, the city that had four concentration camps during WWII, has no memorial center to testify about the horrors of the holocaust that occurred in this area. He underlined that, owing to the Government of Serbia and representatives of the City of Belgrade, an initiative has been started for the capital to receive its memorial center, adding that the goal is to preserve the memory of the WWII victims and to remind everyone living in Serbia and abroad of the great sacrifice Serbia had paid during the anti-fascist battle in the past.

The Remembrance Day for Holocaust and genocide victims and other victims of fascism in the Second World War is dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Serbian, Jewish and Roma people killed during the WWII. It is marked on 22nd April to commemorate the attempted breakthrough of Jasenovac Concentration Camp prisoners in 1945. In Staro Sajmiste concentration camp, on the territory of the former NDH, around 100,000 were kept, with 20,000 killed in the camp, mostly Jewish, and another 20,000 in killing fields around the city, while others were sent with no return to concentration camps Banjica, Trepca, Jasenovac and farther, to Nazi concentration camps in other countries.