MEMORIAL SERVICE HELD FOR SERB VICTIMS OF WORLD WAR II

MRKONJIĆ GRAD, SEPTEMBER 6 /SRNA/ – A memorial service was held today in the village of Podgorija near Mrkonjić Grad for 204 Serb villagers who were tortured and brutally killed by Ustaše horde on this day in 1941.

Duško Miletić from the Mrkonjić Grad War Veterans Organisation told SRNA that the Ustaše, fraudulently lured the local people, who were already in hiding, to this World War II execution site. "They told them they would receive certain privileges and permits if they gathered. Once assembled, they began to brutally torture them and burn women, children, and the elderly to death in barns. At the location where the memorial now stands, 105 people were killed. They selected 82 able-bodied young men from the group, likely fearing a rebellion, took them about two kilometers away, tied them with barbed wire, and burned them alive," said Miletić. According to him, at a third location nearby, another 17 people were killed, bringing the total to 204 Serbs from Podgorija and surrounding areas murdered on that day. Miletić emphasized that this year, for the first time, the War Veterans Organisation included this event in its official calendar of commemorations for Serb victims in the region. Mile Anđelić from Podgorija shared that his grandfather survived the massacre: “The Ustaše hit him in the head with a rifle butt and threw him into a burning house. The house burned down, but when the attack ended, people who had remained in hiding came down to inspect the ruins and found my grandfather alive inside a smoke-filled house,” said Anđelić. He added that during the 1970s, history lessons were held at the memorial site for schoolchildren. The memorial to the WWII victims, where flowers were laid today, was vandalized by Croatian forces during the Defensive–Patriotic War, but it has since been restored. Today’s memorial service was attended by representatives of the War Veterans Organisation, municipal authorities, descendants of the victims, and local residents.