City of Belgrade to start marking Holocaust Remembrance Day

City of Belgrade to start marking Holocaust Remembrance Day

Addressing councilors, Belgrade City Manager Goran Vesić said that Belgrade is one of the rare cities in Europe which is a home to the Jewish community but has not marked the Holocaust Remembrance Day.

“It is very important that we mark this day and point to the insanity that took place as the reminder to the future generations in Belgrade to make sure that no one falls victim ever again because they are of different religion and nation,” Vesić said.

He noted that the decision on marking the Holocaust Remembrance Day was made on the proposal by the Jewish community in Belgrade.

On behalf of the Jewish community, Branko Šnap thanked the councilors, saying that the Jews are part of Belgrade's past, but also its present and the future.

"Belgrade as a multi-ethnic and multi-religious city, that has shared many things with Jews, is in this way showing it remembers the suffering of Jews," he said, and added that between April 6 and May 10, 1941, over 90 percent of the Jewish community in Belgrade perished.

During the 1941-45 German Nazi occupation, 83 percent of the 17,800 Jews that lived in Serbia - among them 1,200 refugees - were murdered.

The main execution site was the Staro Sajmište death camp, whose official name was the Jewish camp Zemun, on the left bank of the Sava River. In 1941 this territory became a part of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) - a Nazi-allied WW2 entity.

Between October 1941 and July 1944, 6,320 Serbian Jews and around 32,000 Serbs were gassed in concentration camps, executed in the camp in Jajinci, the outer suburb of Belgrade, or died in that camp, Tanjug reported.

The Staro Sajmište (Old Fairgrounds) site is part of the municipality of New Belgrade which decided in 2008 to build a museum there honoring the Holocaust victims.