INVESTIGATE SITES ALONG RIVERS FOR REMAINS OF NDH VICTIMS

BELGRADE, OCTOBER 2 /SRNA/ - The Association of Krajina Serbs will ask the Ministry of Labor, Employment, Veterans, and Social Policy of Serbia to investigate sites along the Danube River, together with the Museum of Genocide Victims, to identify Serb victims whose bodies floated down the river from the Independent State of Croatia /NDH/ and were buried there, Association president Mile Bosnić told SRNA.

Bosnić said that Association representatives visited sites in Banatska Palanka near Bela Crkva and across from the Ram fortress in the municipality of Veliko Gradište, where residents confirmed that numerous Serbs killed in the NDH were buried between 1941 and 1945.

He said that there are still living witnesses of these events, as well as their descendants, and that the remains of Serb martyrs are buried along the banks of the Danube, hundreds of kilometers from the places where they were killed.

"People still remember. They showed us sites where they themselves found bones while digging the ground and laying foundations for houses and cottages, on both sides of the Danube. Hundreds of bodies floated down the river," Bosnić said.

He announced that the Association will soon visit Prahovo, as, according to witness accounts from 1989, recorded by late blessed Bishop Atanasije /Jevtić/, a bride and groom, along with all members of a wedding party from Slavonia, are buried there.

Bosnić said that these victims should be buried in a dignified manner and have a funeral service performed for them.

"The man who buried them, Vita Stojanović, concluded from their clothing that the people he pulled from the Danube were Serbs from Slavonia. He recovered and buried an entire wedding party, dead Slavonian wedding guests. The bride and groom, dressed in festive clothes, had been nailed to a door, and that is how he found them," Bosnić said.

He emphasized that the issue of Serb victims of the NDH, whose bodies floated down the Sava and Danube rivers and were buried there thanks to the courage of their compatriots, must be approached seriously and thoroughly.

"We must fully shed light on the crimes committed against Serbs in the NDH and fight to have the Serbian Parliament adopt a resolution on the genocide against Serbs in the NDH. This is our duty both to those who are no longer with us and to our descendants," Bosnić said.