Miroslav Lazanski told the Russians everything!

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Serbian Ambassador to the Russian Federation Miroslav Lazanski spoke at Milenko Djordjevic’s multimedia exhibition Jasenovac – the largest extermination camp in Ustasha, within the International Tragedy Project. Overcoming. A feat. 1418 steps to victory in the Izmailovo Kremlin in Moscow.

– In the Jasenovac camp, my grandfather Mihajlo Mijo Lazanski and my uncle Miroslav Lazanski, after whom I was named, were killed and massacred. They were anti-fascists, they helped the uprising against the German occupier. They were captured by the Ustashas and sent to the Jasenovac camp. You may not know it in Russia, but Jasenovac is, by the way, the most terrible camp on the territory of Europe. The Germans burned people in the Auschwitz crematorium, before killing them with gas. First they kill them with gas and then they burn them. In the Ustasha Jasenovac camp, on the territory of the Quisling state of the Independent State of Croatia, there were Picilli kilns. There, people were burned alive. That is the only case in Europe – said Lazanski.

The ambassador pointed to the fact that the German generals were also shocked by the crimes in Jasenovac.

– Even the German generals of the Wehrmacht were scandalized by it. There was a knife in Jasenovac, the so-called “srbosjek”, which climbed from the hand and which allowed to massacre a large number of people in a short time. According to the official data of the Yugoslav commissions after the Second World War, some 700,000 Serbs, Jews, Roma, Croatian communists and several Slovenian anti-fascists were murdered in Jasenovac, including my grandfather and my uncle – he said.

Lazanski said that Jasenovac was a long-forgotten topic in the SFRY, all in the name of brotherhood and unity.

– After WWII, the issue of Jasenovac was neglected by the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for a long time in the name of national trust, brotherhood and unity. Now we see that this was wrong due to the events of 1991 and, in a way, it was an attempt to review the history of WWII. In the last eight years alone, thanks to the efforts of the Government of the Republika Srpska and thanks to the member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina from the ranks of the Serbian people Milorad Dodik and the President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić, the story in Jasenovac and the plan to build a large memorial area for the victims of Jasenovac came to the fore. Jasenovac is a symbol of the genocide against the Serbian people in World War II, just as Auschwitz is a symbol of the Holocaust and genocide against the Jewish people in Europe, Lazanski said.

The Serbian ambassador to Russia noted that Serbia does not allow attempts to revise history.

– Today, when we have attempts to review the history of the Second World War, when some circles of power in the West try to diminish the contribution of the people of the USSR and the great victory of the Red Army in the Second World War. We in Serbia do not allow it. We know who the winner of WWII is, and those are mainly the Soviet Union and the Red Army. The backbone of the German Wehrmacht broke at Stalingrad. We are aware that we were allies of the Russian people in both WWI and WWII. We cultivate that alliance even today and I am grateful to the organizers of this exhibition here – he said.

Lazanski said that even today, when the Sava level falls, the human bones of Jasenovac’s victims can be seen.

– It was the most terrible camp in enslaved Europe, where there were also separations of children, who were sent to a camp. A place where people die in the most monstrous way. Nowhere in Europe in the concentration camps was there a camp for political prisoners as in Jasenovac. Its name was “Jasenovac 3C”, it was a camp within a camp. There was no roof or eaves in that camp. People lived in the open country. They had neither food nor water. They were starving and cannibalism appeared there. In Europe. That is why Jasenovac is a unique example. It was the most terrible crime scene, the factory of death. Even today, when the level of the Sava falls, the human bones of the victims of that camp can be seen. Unfortunately, Jasenovac is the largest underground city in Serbia – said the ambassador.