27.01.2014.

Marking the Day in memory of the victims of the Holocaust

Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic led the state delegation at today's commemorative ceremony marking the 27th January – International Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Old Fairgrounds at the Monument to the victims of genocide in the World War II. The ceremony was attended also by a delegation of the Ministry of Defence and the Serbian Armed Forces, led by Brigadier General Dragosav Lackovic.

After the laying of wreaths and paying homage to the victims of the Holocaust, President Nikolic, addressing the gathering, recalled that it has been 70 years since the demolition of high-voltage wire fence that separated the hell of the camp from the rest of the world began.

- Those who survived the hell did not believe that their suffering ended. Most of them did not know where to go back and did not have anyone to come back. Every year we remember these horrors and their devastating consequences, which remind us that something like that must never be repeated. Millions of innocent Jews were killed in the World War II – President Nikolic pointed out noting that this unprecedented crime was committed by people – to people, which makes it even more horrifying and monstrous.

During the four years of occupation of Serbia, he added, heinous crimes were committed against Jewish, Serbian and Roma population and many times notorious mobile gas chamber – a truck converted to a place of execution set off from that place towards Jajinci. According to him, the need to repeatedly remind ourselves of the horrors of the Holocaust and to reject as untrue allegations that negate its character and scope of the suffering is topical in all democratic countries.

- The fact that most of the culprits were found and convicted does not mean that we should not go on to see what has been one of the greatest crimes against humanity in the history of civilization according to its character and scope - President Nikolic said.

Wreaths were laid also by the representatives of the City of Belgrade, the embassies of Israel and Germany, Municipality of New Belgrade, as well as representatives of the Jewish and Roma organizations, and the ceremony of paying homage to the victims of the Holocaust, was attended by descendants of the victims, former camp inmates and members of the diplomatic corps.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Day was established on 1st November 2005 by the United Nations General Assembly Resolution, and is marked on 27th January, the day when the most notorious death camp in the occupied Europe, Auschwitz- Birkenau, was liberated in 1945.