Ministry of defence Republic of Serbia
 
17.08.2015.

Marking the 74th anniversary of the crime at Terazije



By laying of wreaths and paying tribute at the Monument to hanged patriots at Terazije, the 74th anniversary of the crimes against civilians committed by the occupying forces has been marked today.

The state ceremony was led by State Secretary of the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Issues Dragan Popovic, and the wreath was laid by Deputy Mayor Andrej Mladenovic.

"When we speak about fascism, people often think about it in a wrong way, thinking that fascism was defeated in 1945, that it has gone and will not appear any more", Popovic said and pointed out that today we know that fascism exists and we are talking about other forms of it.

According to him, that fascism "is doing something similar to what it was doing in the 20th century as well".

"Fascism is great evil against which we must fight even today, and celebrating this day is one of the ways of this fight", Popovic said.

He said that today we remember the innocent victims at Terazije and we cannot help but wonder what was the evil that these five people did to German fascism to be killed in such a brutal manner and hanged at Terazije.

What threat were the two workers, two farmers and a student, Popovic asked, adding that at that time they did not pose any threat to the Great Reich.

"Unfortunately they were brutally killed on 17 August 1941, and then their dead bodies were publicly hanged in order to frighten the Serbian people, patriots, and everything that was progressive in Serbia of that time", Popovic said.

Mladenovic reminded that on 17 August 1941, five Serbian patriots, Belgraders, were publicly hanged to lighting poles after being "brutally and savagely" treated in the prisons of the Gestapo.

According to him, the two farmers, a student, a shoemaker and a tailor were not randomly selected, because, at that point in occupied Belgrade any thought of any resistance to Nazism and Fascism had to be killed.

"They were killed in order to counteract any attempt the Serbian people to resist", Mladenovic said.

He pointed out that Serbia and Belgrade during World War II and in the previous wars suffered much, and that we need to always remember and mark these dates and not forget the martyrs who gave their lives for the freedom of the city, the country and the people.

"Generations have an obligation to repay and thus they remember all those who died for our country and people, creating and organizing a memorial centre at which all Serbian victims in the previous wars would be mentioned", Mladenovic said.

During the Second World War, in a series of tragic events that took place in the then occupied Serbia, the crime committed at Belgrade Terazije Square on 17 August 1941 stands out as one of the most brutal for its effects.

The German occupying authorities publicly hanged to lighting poles five Belgraders suspect to be members of the Serbian resistance.

In memory of them, the city of Belgrade raised the Monument to hanged patriots on Terazije Square, near the Iguman’s palace, in 1983, which is the work of the academic sculptor Nikola Jankovic.

The monument is placed on a marble pedestal, 400 cm high and with 80 centimetres in diameter, while the relief depicts a scene of occupation authorities hanging the five Belgraders.

In the immediate vicinity of the monument, a memorial plaque was placed with the epitaph: "To the freedom fighters hanged by the fascist occupiers at Terazije on 17 August 1941 – to Jovan Jankovic, a worker, Ratko Jevic, a farmer, Velimir Jovanovic, a farmer, Svetislav Milin, a worker, Milorad Pokrajac, a student. The citizens of Belgrade".

 
MOD
Ministry of defence Republic of Serbia, Bircaninova 5 street, Belgrade
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