Aleksandar Vucic, Serbia’s President, and the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) Patriarch Porfirije agreed to build a memorial centre to save memories of the victims of the Jasenovac concentration camps’ system from WW II.
The agreement was reached to mark the 80th anniversary of establishing the Jasenovac concentration camps during the rule of the Ustasha’s Independent State of Croatia (NDH), a Nazi puppet state from 1941-1945.
Nikola Selakovic, Serbia’s Foreign Minister, called on Friday the country’s MPs to support three international agreements among which was a deal on war memorials with Germany.
„Serbia and Germany fulfil the civilasitional obligations to the descendants of those who disappeared in the wars’ whirlwinds.“
The centre will be built in Donja Gradiska, a village in the northernmost part of Republika Srpska (RS), the Serb-dominated semi-autonomous region of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Vucic said Milorad Dodik, the Serb member of Bosnia’s tripartite Presidency, agreed as well.
„Serbia will invest 80 percent of the money and RS the remaining 20 percent in building the centre,” Vucic said.
He added that Serbia would try to open pavilions at the Belgrade location known as Staro Sajmiste, as the best place for the Museum of Genocide Victims and that the left bank of the Sava River would be named ‘The Bank of Jasenovac Victims.”
„Serbia remembers, Serb people remember their victims,” Vucic said.