WREATHS LAID AT MONUMENT TO PATRIOTS HANGED 85 YEARS AGO

BELGRADE, AUGUST 17 /SRNA/ - Wreaths were laid today at the Monument to the Hanged Patriots on Terazije to mark the 85th anniversary of the crime committed by Nazi occupying authorities, who hanged five members of the resistance movement on Terazije on August 17, 1941.

Minister of Labor, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs Milica Đurđević Stamenkovski said that the only ideology of those who were killed was freedom and the belief that they should be masters in their own country, adding that they were victims of an ideology of evil, racial differences, and discrimination that was sweeping across Europe at the time and sought to bring freedom-loving peoples to their knees.

"Even though many years have passed, that ideology is still alive today," Stamenkovski stressed.

She emphasized that Serbs should be proud of the fact that they had two anti-fascist movements.

Stamenkovski told Tanjug that it is time for memorials such as the monument on Terazije to become places visited by schoolchildren on field trips and educational visits.

On this day in 1941, five patriots accused of resisting the occupiers were executed in the courtyard of the German Gestapo headquarters, and their bodies were left hanging for days from street-light poles on Belgrade's Terazije as a warning.

Those executed were student Milorad Pokrajac, tailor Jovan Janković, shoemaker Svetislav Milin, farmer Velimir Jovanović from the Sopot area, and Ratko Jević, a fighter in the Kosmaj Partisan Detachment who was also a farmer.

In their honour, the City of Belgrade erected a memorial on Terazije in 1983, titled the Monument to the Hanged Patriots, created by academic sculptor Nikola Janković.