Print

 

"Kruhari Cemetery: This cemetery was established in 1903; the last known Jewish burial was in 1940. The 0.02-hectare site is surrounded by an ungated and broken masonry wall. The gravestones all date from the 20th century; inscriptions are in Hebrew and Serbo-Croat. Almost the entire Jewish population was destroyed in the Holocaust and no survivors returned. Apart from a cleaning in 1990, the cemetery was left untended. It is completely abandoned and heavily overgrown.

Susnjar Second World War and Holocaust Memorial: Ironically, this monument, which commemorates 5,500 inhabitants of the area killed during the Second World War, was itself ‘ethnically cleansed' in the 1990s. Built in 1972, it was designed by the sculptor Petar Krstić. Its central element is a ten-metre-high flame-like structure made of steel plates, representing the resistance of the people and their victory over fascism. The paths which criss-cross the site are lined with stone tablets bearing the names of those who died.
However, in its current form, only names of Serbian and Jewish origin are visible, together with ‘unknowns': all others have been removed. Other inscriptions now refer to the Serbian and Jewish victims of fascism and the Holocaust: no Muslims or Croatians. The monument's inscriptions are in Cyrillic; it displays both a Magen David and an Orthodox cross. Much of this must date from the period when the town was under Serbian rule. In another twist, by 2004 the town had become entirely Muslim; the monument had not at that date been repaired." Source [January 2009]

Parent Category: EASTERN EUROPE