DODIK: FIND STRENGTH FOR FUTURE IN RETURNING TO ROOTS

LINZ, JUNE 10 /SRNA/ - The President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik has said today in Mauthausen that the series of sufferings of the Serb people in the last century would have to be turned into energy for its unification and indicated that strength for future should be found in returning to the roots.

In his address, after the consecration of the Memorial Chapel at the Military Cemetery in Mauthausen, Dodik expressed his satisfaction that after 100 years the time has come to mark this place and to show that the memory of the suffering of Serbs will not disappear. The president of Srpska emphasized that the history of Serbs is difficult and that the Serb people was almost cut in half in two great wars. He recalled that half of the male population was killed in the First World War, some of them in Mauthausen that had 300 prison camps in which 200,000 Serbs perished. Dodik stated that during the Second World War, Serbs were being killed Auschwitz, Dachau, Jasenovac, Prebilovac, Jadovno, Brod na Drini, Garavice near Bihać, Šušnjar near Sanski Most, while in the past war in the prison camos "Lora" in Split and "Viktor Bubanj" in Sarajevo, where they were killed just because of being a Serb and faith. He pointed out that the entire past century was a century of suffering. "The series of sufferings in the last century should create our energy, which we could turn into energy for our unification, which does not always have to mean only territorial unification, but our commitment to our people without hating others, as we did when we were suffering. We have to return to our roots to find our strength for the future," emphasized Dodik. He says that Republika Srpska intends to continue, to remain and survive, to develop and strengthen together with Serbia, to be a guarantor of peace in the Balkans and to avoid any attempts to drag the Serbs into any kind of war again. Today, His Holiness Patriarch Porfirije of Serbia consecrated the Memorial Chapel of the Holy Serb New Martyrs at the Military Cemetery in Mauthausen, where thousands of Serb soldiers and civilians are buried, and then served the divine liturgy. The memorial chapel at the Mauthausen Military Cemetery was built in memory of the Serb officers, soldiers and civilians who were captured in the autumn of 1914 and taken from Serbia and the neighbouring countries to the Mauthausen prison camp outside Linz, Austria, where about 40,000 Serbs, Italians, Russians and other peoples were imprisoned until 1918.