SERBIAN VOW THAT CRIME IN PREBILOVCI WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN OR REPEATED

PREBILOVCI, AUGUST 6 /SRNA/ - Serbia's Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin has said in Prebilovci that Serbs gather here to make a vow that one of the most brutal crimes committed against the Serbian people 83 years ago will never be forgotten or repeated.

After the Divine Liturgy marking the feast of the Holy Prebilovci and Herzegovinian martyrs, Vulin emphasized that Serbs gather in Prebilovci for the sake of the Serbs, not for the Ustashe. "There is no help for the Ustashe. They don't even consider this a significant crime. If they did, someone might have apologized over these 80 years. We don’t gather because of the killers but because of the victims. We gather to make a vow to each other as Serbs that this will never be forgotten or repeated," Vulin stressed. He pointed out that, unfortunately, Serbs allowed the Prebilovci pits to be sealed with concrete for 50 years and could not bury them properly for 50 years. “That is why we gather and why we are united. We must repent because we allowed them to remain in darkness under concrete for 50 years and not be buried as Christians. We Serbs must be here because if we are not here, it will happen again! Only Serbs are the guarantee that this will not be repeated, not others!” Vulin emphasized. His Grace Metropolitan Joanikije, assisted by several hierarchs and in the presence of officials from Republika Srpska and Serbia, celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Prebilovci today, on the day of the Holy Prebilovci and Herzegovinian Martyrs and the 83rd anniversary of one of the most brutal crimes committed against Serbs. The Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Prebilovci was built and consecrated in 2015 in memory of approximately 4,000 Serbs from Lower Herzegovina who were killed by the Ustashe during World War II. The Serbian Orthodox Church canonized these victims in the same year. This holiday was established in the calendar on the date when, in 1941, the Ustashe brutally killed more than 850 residents of this village, mostly women and children, and threw them into a pit in Šurmanci near Međugorje. This crime was covered up in former Yugoslavia, and in 1961, the pits where the Serbs were thrown were sealed with concrete. The excavation of 13 pits in the Lower Herzegovina area began in 1990, and on August 4, 1991, the bones of more than 4,000 Serbs were buried in a memorial ossuary in Prebilovci. In June 1992, during the "Čagalj" offensive, members of the HOS /Croatian Defense Forces/ and HVO /Croatian Defense Council/ mined the memorial ossuary. After the year 2000, when the Serbs returned to Prebilovci, the remains of the bones were collected, and following the construction of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ, they now rest in its crypt. The church in Prebilovci was built with the support of the then President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik and thanks to donations from Serbs in the Diaspora. It was modeled after the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which symbolizes resurrection and life. Since that time, Prebilovci has been a place that warns and defies anyone who believes that a people can be exterminated from their ancestral homes.