LINTA: RAISING THE MEMORY OF SERBIAN VICTIMS OF GENOCIDE IN THE NDH TO AN INSTITUTIONAL LEVEL

BELGRADE, AUGUST 17 /SRNA/ - The President of the Alliance of Serbs from the Region, Miodrag Linta, stated today that the Ustasha crime against 1,368 Serbian civilians in Sloboština near Slavonska Požega, along with the destruction of the monument with explosives in the early 1990s, are just one piece of evidence demonstrating the crucial importance of raising the culture of remembrance for the Serbian victims of genocide in the Independent State of Croatia /NDH/ to an institutional level.

Linta reminded that on August 16, 1942, in Sloboština, the Ustashe murdered 1,368 women, children, and elderly people in the most brutal ways, before throwing their bodies into five wells.

"The method of murder and the number of victims were accurately established by a commission of the Supreme Court of Croatia in the second half of 1946. The residents of Sloboština moved the bodies from the wells and buried them outside the village, along the road leading to Velika," Linta stated in a press release.

Linta added that the victims were exiled Serbs from Kozara, as well as those from the former Požega district.

"The monument, which was erected in memory of the innocent Serbian victims, was destroyed by explosives by Croatian paramilitary forces in the early 1990s," Linta pointed out.

He added that preserving the memory of the genocide victims in the NDH is of key importance, recalling that the Government of Serbia adopted a conclusion in 2023 confirming that Serbia, together with Republika Srpska, will build two memorial centers—one in Belgrade and one in Donja Gradina.

This, Linta emphasized, would ensure a permanent memory of the Serbian victims of genocide and their biblical suffering during the Second World War.