Laying wreaths, commemoration and “In the Footsteps of Camp Prisoners” March organized by Niš Scout Association marked the 80th anniversary of the breakout from Crveni Krst Camp, which was the first organized and larger escape from a Nazi camp at a time when Europe was in slavery.
Speaking at the commemorative gathering Niš City Mayor Dragana Sotirovski said that any hatred on racial, religious and national grounds, and the one that was cruelly expressed in Niš camp, was the result of darkness, envy, fear and cowardice of those who carried it out and who killed. This libertarian and very special place in terms of heroism is a place of fighting for rights against force. Only true heroism led to freedom from prison cells and pointed rifle barrels, she stated. Let us take care of the monuments. Let us not desecrate them, let us not scratch the walls of tears, pain and sorrow. Let us not humiliate the heroes, let us not mock ourselves, but raise new monuments in honor and glory to those to whom we still owe, Mayor Sotirovski appealed. From this place, we are sending a clear message – we only want peace. We want to live in peace with everyone, said the Mayor of Niš. She presented the students, the winners of history competitions, the monograph of the National Museum in Niš “80 years of the 12. February Memorial Complex”.
The President of the City of Niš Association of Fighters of the People’s Liberation Wars Colonel Vidimir Veljković reminded of the time of the Nazi camp establishing and said that terror, sadistic tortures and unbearable conditions in the camp failed to extinguish the spark of freedom in human hearts. If we stop researching and forget the terrible sufferings of Serbian and other peoples, just because they are of other religions, customs and cultures, then we will lose our freedom again and be complicit in what could happen to us again in some terrible and inhuman forms, said Veljković. A group of 147 bare-handed camp inmates attacked the guards and tried to break out of the camp on February 12, 1942. 105 of them succeeded in that, and 42 inmates died on the wires. Of more than 30,000 people detained in the camp, more than 10,000 were shot at Bubanj, and a large number were interned. Wreaths were laid at the memorial complex by delegations from the Serbian Army, the City of Niš, the Nišava Administrative District, the Police Administration, city municipalities, Association of Veterans of the Serbia People’s Liberation Wars, the Serbian-Russian Humanitarian Center, the descendants of camp victims and prisoners, the representatives of the Jewish and Roma communities, associations that nurture the traditions of liberation wars.
