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We salute him by paying our respects to the victims, placing wreaths and appropriate speeches, invitations not to be forgotten, and then we return to those ordinary days when we pass by overgrown monuments or take selfies at the WWII execution site. Today is May 9, the day of victory over fascism. Exactly 75 years separate us from the moment when Germany signed the unconditional capitulation, since that symbolic end of the Second World War.
May 9 is an occasion to be proud, but also to ask ourselves, at least on that day, what our culture of remembrance is and how much we respect the victims, numerous, civil and war, who died in the Second World War. How many historical facts do we really know and how much is the fruit of free interpretations? Memorial Park management “Kragujevac October” told us something about it in March of this year, with its appeal “to elemental human decency” and an invitation to visitors not to be photographed in the area of that horrible execution site in inappropriate poses. That speaks volumes about education and the attitude of society towards its heritage, something that is part of our identity, says historian Milan Ristović, professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, in an interview for “Politika”.
– We boast of having a strong historical conscience, but that amount of ignorance about something that is real history is something that we cannot be proud of, as well as the attitude towards monumental heritage. We have been living in a kind of social turmoil for over 30 years, so the interpretation of the events of World War II was an indicator of a social and political crisis. Historiography should not allow only a segment of history to be drawn, and it is drowning in the spread of political ideas, says Professor Ristović.
He adds that the great problem of scientific historiography is that even what was established as a fact is forgotten, and warns that this also applies to the events and their interpretations related to the Second World War.
– Also in Europe there are attempts at new interpretations, guilt reviews, debates about who did what to whom, who launched when and who occupied … This is how history looks when politics feed it and that is very dangerous. It is up to us historians to fight with all the means provided by science not to manipulate something that has been established as a historical fact, not to allow a fabricated vision of the past painted with this or that political color to be manufactured – emphasizes Ristović.
There are fewer and fewer living witnesses to tragic events of this period, making it increasingly important to study documents and materials that become the voice of those who are no longer, their voice. The scientific public welcomed with great attention the opening of the Vatican archives since the period of the pontificate of Pope Pius XII in early March. Reactions ranged from skepticism to enthusiasm that studying these documents would shed much light on the war years. The interlocutor of “Politika”, the historian Aleksandar Raković, senior associate researcher at the Institute of Recent History of Serbia, is one of the first.
– It is not enough with the decision of Pope Francis to make the archives available to researchers, the question is whether archivists will publish material that is sensitive to the Catholic Church, including that related to Viviendazije Stepinac. I doubt that the Pope, through people loyal to himself, has complete control over the process of publishing the material, so I do not expect great progress. There will be some new documents, but they will not shed new light on historical events and reveal something we do not yet know, says Raković.
For him, the Second World War is the most difficult subject in the history of Serbia and he points out that it is not easy to understand or resolve, that is why there are few who are willing to study that complex period that marked the war against the occupiers and the war. fratricidal in our country. spaces
– There is no new knowledge that would drastically change the image that we already know about this period. The events are so dramatic and complex that there simply are no easy answers to difficult questions from that period, Raković concludes.
A fairground is a place of remembrance
At the end of February this year, after many years of announcements, the Staro Sajmište Memorial Center Law was adopted, which was a necessary step for this camp in the center of Belgrade to finally become a memorial complex and mark with dignity. We have been waiting for this law for more than seven decades and we are very pleased that it has been adopted, says Robert Sabados, president of the Association of Jewish Municipalities of Serbia, for “Politika”.
– As soon as opportunities allow, we will work to establish a museum, a place where we will all remember our victims because Jews, Serbs and Roma also died there. It will also be an educational center where young generations will come, but also a place where we can show visitors to Belgrade, tourists, that we are in the family of people who actively fought against what was done at the fairgrounds. According to this law, the cannon sheds, which were unfairly forgotten, are also part of the memorial complex. Five thousand people died there, and in the courtyard between the buildings, people were hung as a warning to the inmates inside. We must not forget that the bestialities that seem impossible to us today occurred in those places – says Sabados.
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