In Serbia, National Holocaust Remembrance Day is being marked today

It will be commemorated at the site of the most notorious Nazi camp on the territory of occupied Serbia, with a state ceremony of laying wreaths and honoring it, led by the envoy of the President of Serbia, Minister of Labour, Employment, Veterans and Social Affairs, Nikola Selaković.

In the "Staro Sajmište" Memorial Center, which was established on the site of the infamous camp, in addition to the envoys of the president, wreaths will be laid by the Vice-President of the Government of Serbia and the Minister of Culture, Maja Gojković, a member of the Provisional Authority of the City of Belgrade, Nikola Nikodijević, representatives of the Museum of Genocide Victims, the "Staro Sajmište" Memorial Center ", of the Union of Jewish Municipalities of Serbia, the National Council of the Roma National Minority, the Association of Citizens for Nurturing Anti-Fascist Traditions and representatives of the diplomatic corps in Serbia.

The Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Holocaust, Genocide and Other Victims of Fascism in the Second World War is a national holiday, that is, a day of remembrance, which is celebrated in Serbia every year on April 22.

Remembrance Day is marked as a memorial to April 22, 1945 and the breakthrough of a group of prisoners of the Ustasha death camp in Jasenovac-Donja Gradina in NDH, and is dedicated to all Serbs, Jews and Roma who died in mass and inhumane murders during the Second World War.

On that day, 600 out of a total of 1,073 inmates who were still alive attacked the Ustaša's guard and started a breakthrough that only 91 of them survived. The remaining 473 inmates, who did not participate in the breakthrough due to weakness and illness, were killed and burned together with the camp facilities.

On the same day, a breach was made in the Kožare camp, the working part of the camp in the town of Jasenovac itself. Of the 167 inmates, 11 survived. Partisans entered the camp only at the beginning of May 1945.

The "Jasenovac" concentration camp is one of the largest execution sites in the Second World War. From 1941 to 1945, hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed in that camp, mostly Serbs, as well as Jews and Roma, including tens of thousands of children (camp in Jastrebarski).

Apart from the death camp in Jasenovac-Donja Gradina, the camp included several locations on the territory of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Representatives of the City of Belgrade, the Museum of Genocide Victims, the "Staro Sajmište" Memorial Center, the National Council of the Roma National Minority, the German Embassy, the Citizens' Association and the diplomatic corps will also lay wreaths at the Memorial to the Victims of Genocide in the complex of the former Nazi death camp "Staro Sajmište".

Minister for Human and Minority Rights and Social Dialogue, Tomislav Žigmanov, said, on the occasion of the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust, Genocide and other victims of fascism in the Second World War, that he expresses the deepest respect for the innocent victims and emphasized that they must never be forgotten.

"The duty and obligation of all of us, as responsible members of society, is to preserve the memory of the victims of the Holocaust and genocide and other victims of fascism in the Second World War, to pass on the memories and awareness of the perniciousness of hatred and intolerance to the next generations and thereby ensure a future in which they rule peace, tolerance, understanding and acceptance of diversity," said Žigmanov, according to the statement of the relevant ministry.

The minister stressed that the suffering of the innocent and the horrors of the Second World War should be a warning that only a consistent and uncompromising fight against racial, religious, national and any other intolerance, against hate speech and any form of violence, and persistent commitment to fostering tolerance and respect for diversity, can be a guarantee that such atrocities will never happen again.