Serbia Ruling Party Opens Office at Concentration Camp

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Serbia Ruling Party Opens Office at Concentration Camp :: Balkan Insight

Filip Rudic

4 minutes

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The ruling Serbian Progressive Party has opened an office at the site of a World War II concentration camp in Belgrade, drawing criticism from rights campaigners.

The Progressive Party office at the Staro Sajmiste (Old Trade Fair) site. Photo: BIRN.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic's Progressive Party, which also holds power in the capital Belgrade, has attracted criticism for opening an office at the site of a former Nazi-run camp which is meant to be turned into a memorial complex.

Izabela Kisic, the executive director of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, claimed that there is "obviously no real intention to create a memorial centre" at the Staro Sajmiste (Old Trade Fair) site.

"[The grounds] are supposed to be cleared [of occupants], but instead we see the reverse process taking place," Kisic told BIRN.

Located in the part of Belgrade that was handed over to the Nazi-puppet Independent State of Croatia during wartime, the Staro Sajmiste was used as a concentration and extermination camp for Belgrade's Jews, Serbs and Roma.

The Progressive Party's decision to hang a large party banner across one of the buildings that made up the concentration camp complex also attracted some criticism on social media.

"They don't belong there, a Holocaust museum is supposed to be built," one Twitter user wrote. "I could cry," commented another.

The banner was hung on the wall of the Spasic Pavilion, where the camp's hospital used to be, and has since been taken down. The Progressives' office is located in an adjacent building.

The party did not respond by the time of publication to BIRN's questions about its decision to open an office at the site.

The Belgrade city authorities also did not answer BIRN's inquiry about their plans for the memorial.

Belgrade city manager Goran Vesic said in January that Staro Sajmiste will become a "regional centre for Holocaust research", which will be established with the help of Israel's Yad Vashem remembrance centre.

"There will be three museums, one dedicated to the suffering of the Jews, another for the Serbs and a third for the Roma," Vesic said on January 11.

Some 10,000 Serbs, 7,000 Jews and at least 60 Roma died at Staro Sajmiste in 1941 and 1942. The camp was run by the Waffen SS but the Serbian police carried out the arrests of the Jews.

After the war, nothing was done to preserve the site of the former concentration camp. A monument to the victims was erected nearby in 1995.

The buildings have been used for a variety of purposes, housing artists, a restaurant, and a gym.

However city manager Vesic insisted that a memorial centre will be built.

"We have moved people out of the [central] tower, we're finishing the draft law which will enable the project to move further, and we are simultaneously working on the memorial centre project," he said.

Kisic noted however that the first draft of the law had to be withdrawn last year after a public outcry.

"[It] completely denied the involvement of Serbia and [wartime Serbian premier] Milan Nedic's government [in the camp]," she said.

Kisic also said that it was a "disgrace" that Serbia does not have a memorial centre dedicated to the persecution of Jews in World War II.

Serbia's Federation of Jewish Communities declined to comment on the opening of the Progressive Party's office at Staro Sajmiste.