BELGRADE – The book “Jasenovac and we” was promoted in Belgrade today – a collection of texts by different authors, edited by publicist and writer Vladimir Dimitrijević, who said that memory is the foundation of every nation and that everyone carries a Jasenovac in themselves.
Dimitrijević, speaking at the presentation of the work in Vuk’s endowment, pointed out that there is still an attempt to deny Serbs the right to feel like victims.
“This book should be a voice for those who survived that horror. But everyone carries a Jasenovac in them, that’s why the name of the book is like that. I am from Jasenovac, and you, we are all from Jasenovac. I hope that this book will be just the beginning and that writing about it will continue. We all live in Jasenovac”, Dimitrijević pointed out.
He stated that the collection contains short and longer texts on the subject of the Jasenovac extermination concentration camp, which was established in the village of the same name by the authorities of the Independent State of Croatia /NDH/ in the occupied former Yugoslavia during the Second World War. Dimitrijević pointed out the horrors from 1941 to 1945, where Serbs, Jews, Roma were killed in the death camp, as a true genocide.
“It was such an invasion of evil that words cannot describe it,” said Dimitrijević and added that the key lies in the historiography of Jasenovac, i.e. what is the meaning of Jasenovac in Serbian history.
On the cover of the book, Dimitrijević wrote that the basic feeling and duty for developing a culture of remembrance is a debt, not only to the victims but, above all, to future generations.
“Understanding the nature of evil means preventing it from happening again, and the most dangerous are illusions and lies.” All we need today is the truth. At this moment, it means: understanding the past and soberly, calmly looking at the present. We believe that this book will be a modest contribution to the memory of the victim, without whom any other memory is impossible. Because the victim is the foundation of the community, and, as Žarko Vidović said, there is no historical awareness without an awareness of evil,” the book states.
Sociologist, political scientist, publicist and political analyst Slobodan Antonić said that Jasenovac was a place of real cosmic pain and horror, the most terrible place in Serbian history, so much suffering and torture.
“Jasenovac is a symbol of the Croatian genocide against the Serbs and it is the only destroyed camp of all, there is nothing there, only a meadow, as if it never existed”, said Antonić, who signs the texts in the book “Jasenovac and we” – “Who made Jasenovac – Fascists or Croats?” and “The Trauma of Jasenovac”.
He said that every book about Jasenovac is useful, precious, and welcome and noted that the culture of forgetting is once again killing those innocent people, women, children, and men.
“There must always be a culture of memory. “The real trauma of genocide, because those people were not killed because they did something, made a mistake, did something wrong, but because of who they are, their origin, because they belong to a certain people, because of how they were born,” Antonić pointed out.
The author of the text “Jasenovac and our culture of memory” in this book, Marinko Vučinić, said that even today this infamous hell camp is being marginalized as a topic, the Serbs’ right to victimization is being taken away, and the demystification is being created that the Serbian people did not suffer so much.
Vučinić pointed out that only now some schools go on field trips to visit Jasenovac and learn something, but that this is not enough, and that the struggle for memory today is tied to political will.
“If we do not often talk about it, it is not written in school textbooks, then we are not even aware of it. So what are we talking about? That is why the issue of Jasenovac is definitely marginalized, as if we are back at the very beginning of this story, unfortunately,” noted Vučinić.
Vučinić said that Jasenovac is a Serbian struggle for identity and that it must be insisted on.
Publisher Zoran Kolundžija, founder of the company “Promethej”, who is the author of the text “Jasenovac has never been a taboo subject”, said that this book could be an incentive for preparing a sequel or a series of publications with such a tragic theme.
The work, published by the company “Prometej” from Novi Sad, contains serious analyses, even one poem, a sonnet by Dragan Hamović /literary/, reports Tanjug.
Opinions and texts in this collection are signed by: Nikola Živković, Milomir Stepić, Milo Lompar, Stefan Karganović, Dragiša Bojović, Dragan Hamović, Milan Ružić, Vladimir Umeljić, Srđan Volarević, archpriest-stavrofor Stojiljko N. Kajević, Dejan Mirović, Jovan Pejin, Zoran Čvorović, Aleksandar Lazić, Vladimir Dimitrijević, Slobodan Antonić, Nikola Milovančev, Slavica Garonja Radovanac, Marinko Vučinić, Miloš Ković and editor Zoran Kolundžija.
(www.palelive.com / Srna)
