VUČEN: GENOCIDE WAS COMMITTED AGAINST SERBS IN THE NDH; IT IS IMPORTANT TO NURTURE CULTURE OF REMEMBRANCE

PRIJEDOR, JULY 19 /SRNA/ - The Serbian President's envoy, Nikola Vučen, said at the commemoration of the Day of Remembrance for the Children Killed in the Independent State of Croatia /NDH/ from 1941 to 1945 that genocide was committed against the Serbian people and that such crimes must never be forgotten.

"It is important to nurture the culture of remembrance of such events so that people can understand the true scale of the suffering," Vučen said.

He pointed out that Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and President Milorad Dodik have elevated the commemoration of Serbian victims to a much higher level.

"I believe that is very important for the people living in Serbia and Republika Srpska," Vučen said.

He said that his family roots are in Donji Jelovac and that in recent years he has devoted himself to researching, above all, the suffering of children in this area.

"Here's one example: just 100 meters from here, in a house in the Macure hamlet, during the NDH period, a two-year-old girl was stabbed through the eye with a knife and left hanging from a door. She was found two days later," Vučen said.

Vučen said that 75 children under the age of 14 were killed in Macure alone.

The Day of Remembrance for the Children Killed During the Genocide against Serbs, Jews and Roma in the NDH from 1941 to 1945 was commemorated in Macure near Prijedor.

In the NDH, more than 75,000 children, from newborns to those aged 14, were killed in the most brutal ways.

The NDH was the only state in Europe with camps for children, including those in Sisak, Jastrebarsko, the village of Reka near Jastrebarsko, and Gornja Rijeka near Križevci.

In Gornji Jelovac, in the summer of 1942, 75 children under the age of 14 were killed without a single shot being fired.