21.10.2014.
The Great School Class in Kragujevac
The traditional anti-war event 'The Great School Class' was held on Tuesday near the Broken Wing monument at the Sumarice Memorial Park in Kragujevac, in memory of the students, professors and citizens of Kragujevac executed by German firing squads in World War II. Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic attended the event.“No matter how many years have passed, each Great School Class feels as if this tragedy is taking place before our very eyes”, Nikolic told reporters after the ceremony in Sumarice.
Nikolic said that he is pleased to see so many children attending the commemoration ceremony, noting that they are here to learn aboutthe truth and our devastating past.
With 'The Great School Class' manifestation,Kragujevac and Serbia are sending a message to the world that crimes such as this one must never be allowed to repeat held to commemorate the execution of thousands of innocent men, women and children from Kragujevac and its vicinity, including students and professors of the First Kragujevac High School by the German occupying forces in World War II.
Belgrade and Kragujevac actors jointly staged a musical stage performance comprised of excerpts from 30 poems and plays written by authors from Serbia and abroad in memory of victims of the Kragujevac massacre in World War II.
The selection of excerpts from poems and dramas performed in the past three decades at “the Great School Class” was edited by VidosavStevanovic, a writer from Kragujevac.
The commemoration and the wreath laying ceremony at the Broken Wing monument was also attended by officials of the Serbian National Assembly and Government, ambassadors of Germany, Russia, Belarus, Slovakia and Palestine, representatives of Serbian Armed Forces and religious communities, delegations of 14 sister cities of Kragujevac, students and professors of the First Kragujevac High School.The manifestation was also attended by numerous citizens, including the descendants of the victims.
Several thousand civilians in Kragujevac were executed by German firing squads on October 20 and 21, 1944, as a reprisal for Nazi casualties, in one of the most tragic World War II events on the territory of Serbia.
At the Nuremberg Trials, around 7,000 civilians were reported to have been executed in Kragujevac, while modern research revised this number to 2,792 as this is the number of victims whose names, date and place of birth, and vocations have been determined. The victims include 270 children, the youngest of whom was 11 years old.
As of 2011, October 21 is marked in Serbia as the National World War II Victims Remembrance Day, with numerous commemorative events held in Kragujevac every October.
TANJUG
