November 9, 2009

Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic stated that remembrance of the pogrom of Jews during World War Two represents a lasting moral, political and social responsibility. Today is a day of remembrance not only of the most frightful crimes, but also of the anti-fascist fight and the victory of the ideas of equality and fairness as the antipode to racial extremism, Jeremic said in the National Theater at the marking of the International Day against Fascism and anti-Semitism. He pointed out that the mass murder and persecution represent the peak of anti-civilization actions. Jeremic reminded that in the Kristallnacht, between 9 and 10 November 1938, destroyed were nearly all synagogues in Germany, Jewish cemeteries and shops, hundreds of Jews were killed on the spot, and more than 20.000 arrested and taken to concentration camps. Emphasizing that the Kristallnacht is the symbolic beginning of the Holocaust and the beginning of the organized pogrom of Jews, the crime against six million innocent civilians, Jeremic said that it was a crime without precedent in world history. He pointed that Serbia is today a country that is going forward, proud of its own tradition and identity, and today, as in World War Two, claims that freedom and justice are the only sustainable foundations of true patriotism. Our forefathers left us the honorable names and memory of the fight whose meaning is embedded in the foundations of modern Europe, the biggest peace project in the history of mankind, said Jeremic. According to him, in the future, Serbia will again, with courage and dignity, strive for peace and dialogue among peoples. Jeremic announced that, in remembrance of the citizens who participated in the Spanish Civil War, next week in Madrid he will set up a memorial plaque, dedicated to the Serbian participants and victims of the conflict. Among others, Serbian participants of the Spanish Civil War, World War Two veterans, camp prisoners and representatives of the Jewish community attended the gathering.