83RD ANNIVERSARY OF USTASHA MASSACRE OF SERBS IN RAKOVAC

PALE, NOVEMBER 11 /SRNA/ - A memorial service was held and wreaths were laid on Wednesday at a monument in the village of Rakovac near Pale to the 162 Serb civilians who were victims of a horrific Ustasha crime committed in November 1943.

Vlatko Savić, a descendant of Luka Savić, told reporters that his father had survived the Rakovac ordeal in which his family and relatives were killed, escaping the Ustasha knife by sheer chance.

"The entire village was slaughtered on that black day of November 11, 1943, when old people, women and children were killed, houses were burned and the hearths of the Savić, Klačar, Karavdija, Komadan, Đukić, Pavićević and Starčević families were extinguished," Savić said.

The Savićes were the largest family in the village at the time, with 72 members, and only 17 of them survived, he said.

Radosav Živković, president of the assembly of the Pale Veterans' Organization, recalled that the victims' families had contributed the most to building the monument. The municipal administration had supported the project and built an asphalt access road to the village, he said.

Živković said he hoped the local community would continue to support projects of the Pale Veterans' Organization, which he said placed great emphasis on the culture of remembrance.

He announced that a newly built monument to Serb civilians killed in the village of Jelovci during World War II would be consecrated on Saturday, November 14.

Branko Koroman, speaker of the Pale Municipal Assembly, thanked the Pale Veterans' Organization's Commission for Preserving the Traditions of All Liberation Wars for keeping alive the memory of the massacre of innocent Serb civilians.

"The only fault of these people was that they were Serbs, and it is very important that neither this nor any other crime against the Serb people be forgotten, and especially not the genocidal policy of the Ustasha regime in the NDH," Koroman said.

He said he had been particularly moved by the poem recited at the monument by Luka, the great-grandson of Luka Savić, after whom he was named.

Luka said he had drawn inspiration for his short but moving poem from listening to his grandparents, who described those dark days of November 1943 with sorrow and tears in their eyes.

Aleksandar Rajić, principal of the Pale Elementary School, and history teacher Nenad Tomović also addressed the gathering. They said that, as part of the national project on the culture of remembrance, younger generations should be given as many opportunities as possible to learn about the history of their people, however tragic and painful it may be.

The descendants of the victims' families reminded that the worst of the crime took place on this very day, November 11, 1943. That day, 162 civilians from Rakovac were brutally killed in the pogrom, including 67 children aged 14 and under. More than 300 civilians were killed in the wider area, including Jelovci and the surrounding villages, during that period.

The crime was long shrouded in silence and was not spoken about publicly for decades.

The memorial service was conducted by Archpriest-Stavrophor Marko Glavaš. Wreaths were laid by representatives of the victims' families, the Municipality of Pale, the Pale Elementary School, the Pale Veterans' Organization, SUBNOR Pale and the municipal organization of military officers.