Keepin touch

Whether you have a question, comment, suggestion or any problem in the purview of the government, send us your message and we will try to respond as soon as possible. If your problem is not in our purview, we will forward your message to the relevant institution.

The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Serbia invests in future without forgetting its past

Belgrade, 1 October 2017

President of the Republic of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic today hosted a state commemorative ceremony devoted to the preservation of dignified memory of tens of thousands of brutally killed people in World War II at the Jajinci execution site near Belgrade.

The state ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Ana Brnabic, Serbian Parliament Speaker Maja Gojkovic, ministers of the Serbian government, representatives of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Chief of the General Staff of the Serbian Army, as well as representatives of the City of Belgrade and the Municipality of Vozdovac.

Vucic stated on this occasion that freedom and independence have no price and promised that we will keep them, regardless of all pressures.

He said that Serbia today writes pages of its future - an independent, sovereign and free country, which does not want anything else, but clearly and unequivocally says that it will not give anyone what is hers.

Jajinci were one of the most terrible death plants in Europe, that worked according to a "horrible" routine - breakfast, lunch, dinner, sleeping, shooting, the president of Serbia said, adding that the Serbs, Jews, Roma and all those who thought differently were brought here and that every day 300 people were thrown into the pits. Today we also know what Nazism is, owing to Jajinci, Jadovno, Prebilovci, and that it is a long-term 'investment' in hatred. We must recall and remember the amount of death that had been produced here, Vucic said, adding that we remember well, that we should not forget, as we must not stand in the way of a richer and happier Serbia.

The President of Serbia pointed out that there are few countries and nations in the world that have suffered throughout the history in such proportions as Serbia and the Serbs.

He stated that today Serbia has friends in the world, even among the states it had war with.

According to him, by creating new and preserving old friendships, we are struggling not to repeat the dark episodes of the past, as we fight for the lives and laughter of each of our children.

We do not have the right to forget all the sites where Serbs were executed, our children that were killed, we must not forget that some wanted to eradicate our seed and shed so much blood that they could not calculate how much… We have no right to forget, but we must forgive, to look into the future, for our children, so that they would not go through the same that their ancestors passed through, Vucic concluded.