President: Holocaust most shameful crime in history

President: Holocaust most shameful crime in history

With state and military honors, the president, who laid a wreath at the Memorial to the victims of genocide in World War II, noted that this year marks a significant anniversary - 70 years since victory over fascism.

“Seventy years ago, the wire gates of the camps for destruction of one people were torn down. Inside the walls, there were people who built a wall within themselves, people who did not believe that freedom is possible any more. Efforts have been invested for 70 years now in determining the truth about the suffering in the Holocaust. Will the truth be imprinted in the memory of the generations to come, this depends on the efforts put in by each and every one of us,” Nikolic said, laying a wreath at the memorial, erected within the former death camp at Staro Sajmiste in New Belgrade.

For that reason precisely, insisting on marking the anniversary of the victory over fascism is today more significant than ever, he stressed.

Around 35,000 Jews who had lived in Serbia before World War II were discriminated against, stripped of their rights and robbed during the occupation, with the final goal being the mass extermination of the entire nation, the Serbian president said.

As a result, over 67,000 Jews and 650,000 Serbs in the then Kingdom of Yugoslavia lost their lives, added Nikolic.

"Staro Sajmiste, where we are now, is one of the execution sites that stand as a reminder of the tragic fates that were never recorded, as the innocent victims were never able to speak up. Are there words that could even begin to express their suffering, could we ever understand what took place before the eyes of the victims and their executioners?" the Serbian president asked.

World War II, "the reason why we will be gathering here for as long as Serbia exists“, bears the stamp of sheer evil, Nikolic said. More than 55 million people were killed in this war and “a whole nation faced extinction".

"That was the brave and proud people of Israel," the Serbian president said.

"Today, unfortunately, we again hear the alarming chants of the far-right groups: leave Germany to the Germans, we want history without exaggerating German responsibility for the wars, and the demands that the blame for the causes and consequences of the wars should be assigned equally."

“Today's Germany is a great country, committed to liberty. (It is) the backbone of the European Union, united with the whole planet in the fight for the world of the just and the equal. It is fighting to prevent the resurrection of ideas that threatened to break down humankind with the onset of World War II,” Nikolic said.

He said that as the country that suffered losses in two wars and is home to a number of “friends who are members of the Jewish nation as the nation whose blood, mixed with Serb blood, soaked the land”, today's Serbia will not take part in mindless destruction at any cost.

"We will do everything we can to avoid becoming collateral damage in the pursuit of anyone's interests," Nikolic said.

He underscored that civil unrests throughout Europe and the growing number of extremist movements and the clashes in Ukraine constitute a warning that we need to remember the sufferings of Serbs, Jews, Roma and other nations during World War II.

Nikolic said that Serbia wants to underscore the commitment to the statement of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

Legal experts and historians have been studying the Holocaust for decades now, the former in an attempt to attain justice and punish the perpetrators and their accomplices, and the latter in search of the truth that will provide answers to their questions, remove their dilemmas and produce an explanation concerning the causes and objectives of the crime, the Serbian president said.

Nikolic stressed it is unacceptable to question the facts and evidence, and that the search for answers, study into the downfall of moral and blackout of the human mind must persist.

The wreaths were also laid by Deputy Speaker Veroljub Arsic and Defense Minister Bratislav Gasic, on the behalf of the Serbian parliament and the government.

The commemoration at Staro Sajmiste was also attended by Holocaust survivors, descendants of the victims, former death camp inmates and representatives of the Alliance of Jewish Municipalities in Serbia.

Diplomats, the chairman of the National Council of the Roma National Community, MPs and Belgrade Mayor Sinisa Mali also paid tribute to the victims.

"Read history book"

Israeli Ambassador in Serbia Yossef Levy expressed on Monday his gratitude and admiration for the manner in which Serbian officials honor the memory of Holocaust victims, adding, however, that many citizens are unaware of the Jewish Holocaust in Serbia.

Year after year, I see politicians, the president, the prime minister, the ministers, personally attending the commemorations, Levy told Tanjug ahead of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau on January 27.

Levy pointed to "the touching speeches by Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic, the presence of Minister of Labor, Employment, Social Policy and Veteran Affairs Aleksandar Vulin at the opening of an exhibition on war crimes of the Wehrmacht, and Justice Minister Nikola Selakovic attending the ceremony to mark the anniversary of the Novi Sad raid."

"I strongly appreciate the personal involvement of so many high-ranking Serbian officials in creating this architecture of memory. This is important both for Serbia and for us," the Israeli ambassador said.

Speaking about the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the largest Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, which will be marked on January 27, Levy stressed that the Holocaust, which claimed the lives of more than 6 million Jews, including 1.5 million children, remains the most tragic chapter in the long and tumultuous history of the Jewish people.

"We are still living in the shadow of the Holocaust... We are still living with the burden of that memory and pain," the ambassador said, adding that Europe was home to the Jewish people before the Holocaust but that not many of them had survived World War II.

"Today we are facing a tide of extremely violent anti-Semitism. This is not 1938 or 1939, but again we hear people saying that Europe is no place for Jews," Levy said.

Referring to the anti-Semitism as "a disease," Levy said that the horrifying message of the Holocaust - that gruesome crimes were committed against helpless people simply because they were different - must never be forgotten.

"It is our duty to bear in mind the meaning of humaneness: it means to be compassionate, fair, and to never allow any nation, whichever it may be, to become the victim of such cruelty, simply because it is different," Levy said.

He warned that even today shocking events take place around the world, particularly in the Middle East, calling to memory some of the saddest episodes of the Holocaust.

Being indifferent to such scenes is the worst. When you see evil, you must not keep quiet, you must face it and fight against it, he stressed.

He noted that the Holocaust took place in Yugoslavia as well, in the territory of today's Serbia, "where Nazis and their collaborators" killed around 90 percent of Serbian Jews, but that many people are not familiar with this fact.

"I wonder how many Serbs, crossing the bridge on the Sava River in Belgrade every day, know what went on at Staro Sajmiste 70 years ago. Thousands of women and children were held captive there, in the cold, sick and hungry, and finally executed in gas vans, he said.

"I think that it is the priority for Serbia, and in the interest of Serbia, as well as in our interest, to read this history book together, the book that unites us," said Levy, adding that many Serbs met the same fate as Jews.

"The Jews and the Serbs are part of the same history chapter, which we should read together, with eyes wide open, with courage and friendship," the Israeli ambassador said.