KRAGOJAVAC Massacre – Wikipedia

The KRAGOJAVAC’s massacre It was the mass murder of men and boys, by the German soldiers, which took place on October 21, 1941 in Kragujevac, for a number of victims variable between 2778 and 2794 people, mostly Serbians. The massacre occurred in the territory of Serbia occupied by the Germans during the Second World War as a retaliation for the attacks of the rebels in the Gornji Milanovac district, these attacks caused the death of ten German soldiers and the injury of another 26. The number of hostages from Shooting was calculated as a ratio of 100 hostages executed for each killed German soldier and 50 hostages executed for each injured German soldier, a formula conceived by Adolf Hitler with the intent to suppress the anti -Nazi resistance in Eastern Europe.

After a punitive operation was conducted in the surrounding villages, during which over 400 males were killed and four villages were burned, another 70 Jews and male communists were killed previously arrested in Kragujevac. At the same time, males aged between 16 and 60, including high school students, were gathered by German troops and local collaborators and the victims were selected from each other. The selected males were then conducted in the fields outside the city, affected by heavy machine guns and their bodies buried in common pits. The contemporary German military registers indicated that 2300 hostages were shot. After the war, the inflated estimates reached 7000 deaths, but German and Serbian scholars agreed the figure of almost 2800 killed, including 144 high school students. In addition to the Serbs, the victims of the massacre included Jews, Roma, Muslims, Macedonian, Slovenians and members of other nationalities.

Several highs German military officials were tried and sentenced for their involvement in the representatives in retaliation at the Nuremberg trial and the subsequent processes of Nuremberg. The massacre had a deep effect on the course of the war in Yugoslavia. The tensions between the two guerrilla movements, the communist led partisans and the monarchical Serbian Nationalist Cetnici, and convinced the Cetnic leader Draža Mihailović that further attacks against the Germans would only cause more deaths among Serbian civilians. The Germans soon found the mass executions of the ineffective and counterproductive Serbs, as they trembled to push the population into the arms of the insurgents. The ratio of 100 executions for a killed soldier and 50 executions for an injured soldier was reduced on half in February 1943 and completely removed during the year. The massacre is commemorated by the event October in the commemorative park of Kragujevac and from Museum of 21 October , and has been the subject of numerous poems and feature films. The anniversary of the massacre is commemorated every year in Serbia as a day in memory of the Serbian victims of the Second World War.

The encirclement and invasion of Yugoslavia [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

After the 1938 Anschluss between Nazi Germany and Austria, Yugoslavia came to share the north-western border with Germany and suffered growing pressures when its neighbors aligned with the powers of the axis. In April 1939, Italy opened a second frontier with Yugoslavia when he invaded and occupied nearby Albania. ^[first] At the outbreak of the Second World War, the Yugoslav government declared its neutrality. ^[2] Between September and November 1940, Hungary and Romania joined the tripartite pact, aligning themselves with the axis, and Italy invaded Greece. Yugoslavia was now almost completely surrounded by the powers of the axis and their satellites, and its neutral position towards the war became tense. ^[first] At the end of February 1941, Bulgaria also joined the pact. The next day, the German troops entered Bulgaria from Romania, closing the ring around Yugoslavia. ^[first] With the intention of protecting his southern side for the imminent attack on the Soviet Union, the German dictator Adolf Hitler began to exercise strong pressures on Yugoslavia so that he joined the axis. On March 25, 1941, after a certain delay, the Yugoslav government signed the pact with reserve. Two days later, a group of Serbian and pro-Western nationalist officers of the Yugoslav Aeronautical Royal deposited the regent of the country, Prince Paolo, with a stroke of state without blood. The teenager nephew Peter II placed on the throne and brought a “national unity government” led by the commander of the Royal Aeronautica Yugoslava, General Dušan Simović to power. ^[3] The coup d’état infuriated Hitler, who immediately ordered the invasion of the country, which began on April 6, 1941. ^[4]

Yugoslavia was quickly overwhelmed by the combined force of the axis powers and surrendered in less than two weeks. The government and the royal family went into exile and the country was occupied and dismembered by its neighbors. The territory of Serbia occupied by the Germans was limited to the borders of the Kingdom of Serbia before the Balkan war and was occupied directly by the Germans for the main railway and river transport routes that crossed it, as well as for its precious resources, in particular non -ferrous metals . ^[5] The occupied territory covered about 51000 km ² And he had a population of 3800000 of people. Hitler will briefly consider canceling all the existence of a Serbian state, but this intention was quickly abandoned and the Germans began to look for a Serbian suitable for guiding a puppet government in Belgrade. ^[6] Initially they oriented themselves on Milan Aćimović, a convinced anti -communist who served as a minister of internal affairs of Yugoslavia between the end of 1939 and the beginning of 1940. ^[7]

Employment and resistance [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

After the invasion two resistance movements emerged: the multi -ethnic partisans with a communist guidance and the monarchical Serbian nationalist Cetnici, although during 1941, within the occupied territory, the partisans were also made up almost entirely of Serbs. The partisans were led by the Secretary General of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito; The Cetnici were led by Colonel Draža Mihailović, an officer of the Yugoslav royal army between the two wars. The two movements had largely divergent objectives. While the partisans tried to transform Yugoslavia into a communist state under the guidance of Tito, the Cetnics sought a return to the status quo of the front, so the Yugoslav monarchy and by extension the Serbian political hegemony would have been restored. ^[8] The communist resistance began in early July, shortly after the invasion of the Soviet Union, taking both the Germans and the puppet authorities. ^[7] Towards the end of August 1941, the partisans and the Cetnici carried out joint attacks against the Germans. ^[8] The partisans were well organized and many of their commanders acquired a large military experience having already fought in the Spanish civil war. Within several months from the invasion, there were 8000 fighters distributed in 21 detachments in Serbia alone: ^[9] Many cetnics were the veterans of the Balkan wars and the First World War or the former members of the Yugoslav royal army, ^[ten] boasting about 20,000 other fighters in the Serbian territory occupied by the Germans at the time of the massacre. ^[11]

On August 29, the Germans replaced Aćimović with another fervent anti -communist, the former Army Minister and the Navy and Chief of General General, General Milan Nedić, who formed a new puppet government. ^[twelfth] In September, the Nedić government was made to form the Serbisches SS-Freiwilligen Korps (in Serbian-Croatian: Serbian volunteer command ; SDK), a auxiliary paramilitary formation to help repress the anti-German resistance. In fact, the SDK was the military arm of the Yugoslav National Movement of fascist inspiration (in Serbian-Croatian: Company’s combat organization of work , Choir), Guidato da Dimitrije Ljotic. ^[13] Originally it was supposed to have a force of 3000-4000 soldiers, but this number eventually went up to 12000. ^[14] He was led by Kosta Mušicki, a former colonel of the Yugoslav royal army, appointed by Nedić on October 6, 1941. ^[15] In the early stages of employment, the SDK constituted the bulk of Nedić forces, which counted about 20,000 men by the end of 1941. ^[16]

Anti -odeque insurrection [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

Nedić’s inability to crush partisans and cetnics pushed the military commander to Serbia to request reinforcements from the Germans from other regions of the continent. ^[16] In mid -September they transferred the 125th infantry regiment from Greece and the 342nd infantry division from France to help repress the revolt in Serbia. On September 16, Hitler issued Directive No. 312 for the General field marshal Wilhelm List, the Wehrmacht commander in South -Eastern Europe, ordering him to suppress any form of resistance in that region of the continent. The same day, the High Command of the Wehrmacht (Supreme Command of the Armed Forces) he issued Hitler’s order on the suppression of “Communist armed resistance movements in the employed areas”, signed by General field marshal Wilhelm Keitel: ^[17] This decree specified that all the attacks against the Germans on the eastern front had to be “considered of communist origin”, and that 100 hostages had to be shot for each German soldier killed and 50 for each injured German soldier. ^{[18] [19]} The order was intended to apply throughout Eastern Europe, although an identical policy had already been implemented in Serbia as early as April 28, 1941, aimed at discouraging guerrilla attacks. The attacks against the Germans increased in the first half of the year and Serbia returned to being a war area. The German troops raged through the countryside by burning villages, taking hostages and establishing concentration camps. The first mass executions of the hostages began in July. ^[19]

The strengthening of the German military presence in Serbia caused a new wave of mass executions and war crimes. The commanders most responsible for these atrocities were mainly of Austrian origin, already in service in the Austro-Hungarian army during the First World War. ^[20] Most were ardently anti-Serbian, a prejudice to which the historian Stevan K. Pavlowitch connects the wider anti-lavy racism of the Nazis. ^[21] On September 19, the General of the mountain team Franz Böhme was appointed plenipotentiary commander general in Serbia, with the responsibility of quelling the revolt, bringing with him the staff of the XVIII mountain body: he was assigned additional forces to assist him in the purpose, strengthening the three German divisions already present in the territory. ^[22] These divisions were the 704th Infantry Division, the 714th Infantry Division and the 717th Infantry Division. ^[23] Böhme boasted a deep hatred for the Serbs and encouraged his troops mainly born in Austria to demand “revenge” against them. Its main complaints were the assassination of the archduke Francesco Ferdinando and the subsequent Austro-Hungarian military defeats at the hands of the Serbian royal army, which he thought could be rectified only by the shooting in retaliation of Serbian civilians. “Your goal”, said Böhme, “is to be achieved in a land where, in 1914, German blood rivoli flowed due to the betrayal of the Serbs, men and women. You are the avengers of those deaths”. ^[24]

Scontri al Gornji Milanovac [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

Yield of the 6th Company [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

By the end of September 1941, the city of Gornji Milanovac was actually cut outside the rest of Serbia occupied by the Germans by the frequent interruption of road and rail transport to and towards it. On September 29, elements of the partisan detachments attacked Gornji Milanovac, defended by the 6th Company of the 920th Battalion National shooter . ^[25] The garrison of the 6th company was based on a local school. The guerrillas did not expect to capture the garrison, but took the attack to generate new recruits from the surrounding area. The local cetnic commander, Zvonimir Vučković, became aware of the partisan plans and decided to join the attack to avoid the significant loss of prestige that would derive from allowing partisans to attack alone. The insurgents launched a morning attack against the school. Although they managed to overcome the sentinel places, the heavy machine guns of the Germans soon stopped the assault. In 90 minutes of combat, ten Germans were killed and 26 injured. The two groups of rebels believed that continuing the assault would be too expensive and Vučković suggested negotiating with the Germans. ^[26]

Knowing that the Germans would have been much more likely to conduct negotiations with the realists instead of the communists, the partisans allowed the Cetnics to conduct the negotiations to attract the garrison outside the city. ^[27] A Cetnico correspondent delivered the ultimatum to the garrison, asking that he would surrender to the guerrillas. The ultimatum was rejected. ^[25] Thirty minutes later, a second cetnic correspondent appeared, which guaranteed the 6th company the undisturbed passage to Čačak on condition that Gornji Milanovac left the same day. He also asked that the city and its inhabitants were spared from any possible retaliation. The commander of the 6th company agreed and evacuated the garrison. About 3 kilometers from Gornji Milanovac, the 6th company was surrounded by guerrillas and forced to surrender. ^{[27] [28]}

Punitive shipping of the battalion [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

The disappearance of the 6th company caused discontent in the German ranks. The reconnaissance flight sent to locate it was not successful. ^[27] The employment authorities were not aware of the fate of the 6th company until a German officer managed to escape and reported the incident: the German prisoners were treated humanly, but when Böhme became aware of the situation, he decided that a retaliation was necessary And for this he ordered the 3rd battalion of the 749th infantry regiment to burn Gornji Milanovac and take hostages to speed up the recovery of the captured German troops. ^[29]

The 3rd battalion began its advance on October 5, fighting along the 40 kilometer road for Gornji Milanovac and suffering several victims. Entering Gornji Milanovac, he gathered between 120 and 170 male hostages, including a cetnic commander who should have met his superiors the following day. The officer in command of the battalion, Hauptmann Fiedler tried to exploit this man to contact the Cetnic Command and organize an exchange of prisoners. Fearing that such an action would jeopardize the recovery of the German prisoners, Fiedler decided not to raze Gornji Milanovac to the ground. ^[27]

In this period, Fiedler received a SOS signal from nearby Rudnik, where another German unit was involved in heavy fighting with guerrillas. ^[27] Fiedler therefore decided to redirect the 3rd battalion in Rudnik to change the unit. Assuming that he should have passed through Gornji Milanovac on the way back, he decided to postpone the socket of the hostages to Gornji Milanovac and the destruction of the city until his return from Rudnik. Contrary to Fiedler’s expectations, the battalion received the order to return to Kragujevac immediately after raising the unit to Rudnik, and therefore he was unable to raze Gornji Milanovac to the ground. ^[30] Böhme was Furioso and on October 15 he sent the 3rd battalion to Gornji Milanovac to perform his initial orders. ^[29] The battalion returned to Gornji Milanovac the same day, but now only forty people could be found to be captured as hostages. The city was then razed to the ground. This time no attempt was made to exchange the hostages. ^[30]

Kraljevo massacre [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

Between 15 and 16 October, ^{[thirty first]} 10 German soldiers were killed and 14 injured during a partisan-cetnic joint attack in Kraljevo, a city about 150 kilometers south of Belgrade and 50 kilometers south-east of Gornji Milanovac. ^[32] On October 15, the troops of the 717th Infantry division fired 300 civilians in Kraljevo in retaliation. ^[33] These killings of retaliation continued in the following days, and from 17 to 20 October ^{[thirty first] [32]} The German troops gathered and killed 1736 men and 19 “communist” women, ^{[34] [35]} Despite the attempts of the local collaborators to mitigate the punishment. ^[32] These executions were personally supervised by the commander of the 717th division division of infantry, the Major General Paul Hoffman. ^[36]

Rake [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

Kragujevac is an industrial city in central Serbia, about 100 km south of Belgrade, ^[37] E 37 km and Est Di Gornji Milanovac. ^[38] In 1941 he had a population of over 40000 inhabitants, ^[39] And it was the headquarters of a German military district. ^[38] The city was also home to the largest armament factory in Yugoslavia, which had between 7000 and 8000 workers before invasion. ^[40]

Immediately after the massacre a report was written by the commander of the military district of Kragujevac, Hauptmann Otto von Bischofhausen. This report was addressed to Böhme and was subsequently presented as proof of the subsequent Nuremberg processes. According to Von Bischofhausen, in the late evening of 18 October, all male Jews in Kragujevac, together with some communists, were arrested according to the lists, for a total of 70 people. Since it was too low a hostage number to reach the share of 2300 people, he proposed to perform arrests on the street, in the squares and houses of Kragujevac, in an operation that was to be conducted by the 3rd battalion of the 749th regiment of Infantry and from the 1st battalion of the 724th infantry regiment, part of the 704th Infantry Division. In response to this proposal, Von Bischofhausen said he had suggested to the commander of the garrison, Major Paul König, who instead of using the population of Kragujevac, the hostages requested were collected by the surrounding villages, known to be “completely scattered with communists”. ^[41] According to the story of Von Bischofhausen, this suggestion was initially accepted by König and on October 19 the 3rd battalion raked the villages of Mečkovac and Maršić and the 1st battalion led a similar operation in the villages of Grošnica and Milatovac. In total, in these four villages, 422 men without German losses were shot. ^[42]

On the evening of October 19, Von Bischofhausen met König again and was told that the original proposal was implemented the next day to collect the 2300 hostages. The following evening, the Jews and the male communists, held without food by their arrest, were shot by the German troops in the barracks and in the courtyard where they were held. ^[38] At the same time, the males aged between 16 and 60 were arrested within the same Kragujevac. ^{[43] [44]} They were held in the barracks of a former battalion motorized in Stanovija Field. ^[38] Over 7000 hostages were gathered. ^[45] German troops and German ethnic units of the banato were involved in the raking, ^[11] As well as the 5th Regiment of the SDK, under the command of Marisav Petrović. ^[13] According to Von Bischofhausen, König allowed several groups of men were excluded from the raking, including those with a special pass issued by the district headquarters of Von Bischofhausen, specialized professionals or those who had an essential profession, and those who were members of the movement of Ljotić. ^{[43] [forty six]} When it was possible to identify too few adult males, high school students were also gathered. ^[11] The priests and monks of the churches of the city were also seized. Each hostage was recorded and his things annotated meticulously. ^[38]

Executions [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

The hostages were retained during the night in a public square in the city. In his version of the facts, Von Bischofhausen claimed to have raised objections to König, but the latter insisted that his orders, issued by the commander of the 749th infantry regiment, were performed. ^[43] Just before the start of the executions, Ljotić obtained approval for two Zbor officials to examine the hostages. Over 3000 people, those identified as “real nationalists” and “true patriots”, were excluded from the executions lists following the intervention of Ljotić. ^[45] Those who were not extracted from the hostage reserve, were accused of being communist or spreading “communist propaganda”. The Zbor officials said they were not worth saving them because they had “infected the younger generations with their left -wing ideas”. ^[47] The Germans considered Zbor’s involvement a “discomfort”. According to Jovan Byford, it was never understood or probable that he reduced the overall number of hostages killed to retaliation and served only to guarantee the exclusion of those that Zbor believed to be worth saving. ^[45]

On the morning of October 21, the men and boys gathered were conducted in a field outside the city. For a period of seven hours, they were lined up in groups from 50 to 120 and shot with heavy machine guns. “Go ahead and shoot,” said an elderly teacher, “I’m conducting my class.” ^[11] He was shot together with his students. ^[44] As they faced the platoon of execution, many hostages sang the patriotic song Hey Slavs , which became the national anthem of Yugoslavia after the war. ^[48] A German soldier was shot for refusing to participate in the killings. ^[49]

A German relationship said: “The executions to Kragujevac took place although there had been no attacks against Wehrmacht members in this city, for the reason that you could not find enough hostages elsewhere”. ^{[50] [51]} Some German informants were also inadvertently killed. ^[50] “Clearly”, writes the historian of the Holocaust Mark Levene, “the Germans in uniform were not so particular on those who shot in retaliation, especially in the Balkans, where the population was considered subhuman”. ^[35]

The victims of mass executions included Serbs, Jews, Roma, Muslims, Macedonians, Slovenians and members of other nationalities. ^[52] After the massacre, the Wehrmacht held a military parade through the city center. ^[53] On October 31, Böhme sent a report to the commander in the interim of the Wehrmacht in southeastern Europe, the General of the pioneers Walter Kuntze, reporting that 2300 hostages had been shot in Kragujevac. ^[54]

Answer [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

The partisan and then historical commander Milovan Djilas recalled in his memories how the Kragujevac massacre gripped all Serbia with “fatal horror”. ^[55] During the war, local collaborators put pressure on the Germans to implement rigorous control procedures to ensure that the “innocent civilians” were not executed, even if only when the hostages were of Serbian ethnicity. ^{[56] [57]} The extent of the massacres in Kragujevac and Kraljevo entailed that the guerrillas did not give German prisoners of war prisoners.

“The enemy changed his attitude towards German prisoners,” reported a high officer of the Wehrmacht. “Now they are usually mistreated and shot.” ^[55]

When Böhme was raised by the office of plenipotentiary general commander in December 1941, between 20000 and 30000 civilians were killed in German shootings. ^[58] The ratio of 100 executions for each killed soldier and 50 executions for each injured soldier was reduced on half in February 1943 and completely removed during the year. From now on, every single execution had to be approved by the special correspondent Hermann Neubacher. ^[59] The massacres of Kragujevac and Kraljevo brought the German military commanders to Serbia to question the effectiveness of these murders, since they pushed thousands of serbs into the hands of the anti-German guerrilla. The entire Serbian workforce of a airplane factory that produced armaments for the Germans was shot in Kraljevo. This contributed to convincing the Okw that the arbitrary shootings of Serbs not only involved a significant political cost, but were also counterproductive. ^{[60] [sixty one]}

The murders of Kragujevac and Kraljevo exacerbated the tensions between partisans and cetnic. ^[32] Mihailović also convinced that active resistance was useless as long as the Germans deduced the unassailable military advantage in the Balkans and that the killing of the German troops would have led only to the unnecessary death of tens of thousands of Serbs. He therefore decided to reduce the attacks of the Cetnica guerrilla and wait an allied landing in the Balkans. ^{[17] [62] [63]} The killings took place only a few days before Captain Bill Hudson, an executive officer of the special operations, met Mihailović in his Ravna Gora headquarters. ^[11] Hudson witnessed the consequences of the massacre by noting the requested psychological tribute.

“Morning and night were the most bleak atmosphere,” he said, “because women were in the fields and every dawn and sunset felt the complaints. This had a very strong effect on Mihailović”. ^{[sixty four]} “The tragedy gave Nedić a convincing proof that the Serbs would have been biologically exterminated if they had not been submissive,” wrote Djilas, “and to the Cetnics proof that the partisans were causing the Germans prematurely”. ^[65]

Mihailović’s decision to refrain from attacking the Germans led to a rift with Tito and with the partisans. The non -resistance of the cetnics made easier for the Germans to face the partisans, who for most of the rest of the war could not be defeated in combat. ^[66]

Legal and estimates of the massacres estimates [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

On November 11, 1941, the partisans captured a Wehrmacht officer named Renner, commander of the area in Leskovac, who was taking part in an anti -partisan raid around Lebanon. Exchangeing him for König, who according to some had given Renner a carrier carriers engraved with his name, the partisans executed Renner as a war criminal. For almost fifty years it was widespread opinion that König, and not Renner, had been killed by the partisans. In 1952 a plaque was erected in the place where König had been killed and a song was written on the accident. In the 1980s it was definitively shown that the German officer executed by the partisans in November 1941 was not König. A new plaque was thus dedicated in 1990. ^{[sixty seven]}

List and Böhme were both captured at the end of the war. On 10 May 1947 they were accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity as part of the trial for the hostages of the subsequent processes of Nuremberg. ^[68] One of the crimes specifically listed in the accusation act was the massacre of 2300 hostages in Kragujevac. ^[69] Böhme commit suicide before his summons in court. ^[68] List was considered guilty. ^[70] He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1948, ^[71] But it was released for health problems in 1953. Despite this, he lived until June 1971. ^[72] Keitel was recognized guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg process and subsequently hanged. ^{[seventy three]} Hoffmann, which the local population nicknamed the “butcher of Kraljevo and Kragujevac”, was promoted to the command of the most capable 352nd infantry division in November 1941. ^[74] The war ended as the commander of a field of prisoners of war having been degraded for refusing to shoot the deserters in Ukraine. ^[36] The 717th Infantry Division was reorganized as 117th division Hunter Further on in the war and his troops took part in the massacre of hundreds of Greek civilians in Kalavryta in December 1943. ^[60]

At least 31 were common were discovered in Kragujevac and surroundings after the war. ^[75] In 1969, the historian Jozo Tomasevich wrote that despite official German sources they said that 2300 hostages had been shot, both the partisans and the Cetnics agreed that the number of victims was about 7000. He also said that a careful investigation by the scholar Jovan Marjanović in 1967 had set the figure to about 5000. ^[50] In 1975, Tomasevich noticed that some estimates of the number of people killed reached 7000, but that the main authority on German terror in Serbia, Venceslav Gliošić, placed the figure at about 3000. ^[34] In 2007, Pavlowitch wrote that the inflated figures of 6000-7000 victims were largely believed for many years, but that German and Serbian scholars had recently agreed on the figure of 2778. ^[76] In the same year, the curator of the museum of 21 October in Kragujevac, Staniša Brkić, published a book with the names and personal data of 2794 victims. ^[77] At the total of the dead, 144 were high school students and five of the victims were 12 years old. ^[53] The last survivor of the massacre, Dragoljub Jovanović, died in October 2018 at the age of 94. He survived despite having suffered eleven bullet wounds and had to suffer the amputation of one leg. After the war he was appointed inaugural director of the museum of 21 October. ^[78]

Kragujevac massacre ended up symbolizing the brutality of German occupation in the Yugoslav popular memory. ^[79] It can compare itself to the destruction by the Germans of the Czechoslovakian village of Lidice in June 1942 and the massacre of the inhabitants of Oradour-sur-Glane, in France, in June 1944. ^[44]

To commemorate the victims of the massacre, the entire Šumarice was designated as a commemorative park in 1953. It is now known as the Kragujevac commemorative park and covers 353 hectares that include the area containing the common pits. The museum of 21 October was founded inside the park on February 15, 1976. ^[52] Šumarice is the place of an annual television commemoration known as Lesson of the great school (in the sero: Great school class ) which attracts thousands of participants every year. ^[80] The park contains several monuments, including the “monument to the interrupted flight”, dedicated to students of murdered high schools and their teachers, and monuments Pain and contempt , One hundred for one It is Resistance and freedom . ^[52] The site underwent damage during the bombing by NATO in Yugoslavia in 1999. ^[81]

In 2012, the National Assembly of Serbia approved a law that declares the day on 21 October in memory of the Serbian victims of the Second World War. ^[82] The German Federal Cabinet has never officially apologized for any of the mass executions committed in Serbia by the Wehrmacht during the Second World War, including the Kragujevac massacre. ^[80] On October 21, 2021, the vice -president of the Bundestag Claudia Rotè was the first high official of the German government to participate in the annual commemoration in Šumarice. “My intention of participating was to emphasize that we will not let the crimes of the Nazis and Wehrmacht forget,” Roth remarked, “and that, based on that memory, we want to promote good and friendly relationships with our Serbian friends and partners.” ^[83]

The poet and writer Serba Desanka Maksimović wrote a poem on the massacre entitled Bloody fairy tale . ^[84] The poetry was subsequently included in the school program of the Yugoslav secondary school and the pupils had to learn it by heart. ^[85] It is among the most famous Serbian language poems. ^{[eighty six]} His recitations constitute the fulcrum of the annual commemoration ceremonies in Šumarice. ^[80] In 1965, the Belgian poet Karel Jonckheere wrote poetry Children with cricket voice , also on the massacre. ^{[eighty seven]} The Blue Butterfly , a book of poems by Richard Berengarten, is based on the poet’s experiences during the visit to Kragujevac in 1985, when a blue butterfly landed on his hand at the entrance of the commemorative museum. ^[88]

The massacre was the subject of two feature films: Prozvan Je I V-3 (V-3 is Called Out; 1962) ^[89] And Krvava Bajka (in Bloody Fairy Tale; 1969), named after the homonymous poem. ^[90]

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