Renovation of the Memorial Center: New events at the Old Fairground

Aleksandar Vučić told us that he finally "liberated" the Old Fairground, he remembered that there was a place where he could repay the innocent victims of the Nazi pogrom much closer to his residences than the creepy Jasenovac. Who else would, if not him personally?

Unfortunately, I am personally connected to all the execution sites. My mother was strangled and taken to her death from the Old Fairground, through the center of Belgrade, in a truck with ghosts. My father was taken from Cannon sheds, which are considered part of the Old Fairground, as a "hostage" to be shot. My own uncle was killed in Jasenovac with his wife and two small children.

The old fairground was under the direct command of the SS, but the Jews in Belgrade were arrested by Nedić's gendarmes and handed over to the Germans.

We will forgive the President of Serbia for wrongly referring to Auschwitz when mentioning Dwight Eisenhower, Barack Obama made the same mistake. At that time, still a general, Eisenhower did not mention any Auschwitz, he visited Buchenwald and was horrified. The grandfather-uncle of the former American president did not, as Obama publicly claimed, liberate Auschwitz, but participated in the liberation of Buchenwald. Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army. I was in both Auschwitz and Buchenwald, I can testify again as a witness of the time, but, of course, it is not about me.

It is good that the marking of the Old Fairground as a memorial center started with the old tower, its famous symbol. I visited the Technical Fair when it opened before the war with my father and admired the German, Hitlerian airplanes that were on display. Well, I'm one of those old people who tragically remember too much.

I know a lot about all three phases of the life of the Old Fairground. I'm not wrong, it's not two, as is usually thought, but three, and it would be a great sin to forget the third, the birth of modern Serbian art in its pavilions right after the end of the Second World War. The first phase, from autumn 1941 to May 1942, was "Judenlager Semlin" - "Jewish camp Zemun". Jewish women and children were locked up there, men in Topovske šupe. The second phase, until the end of 1944, was the concentration camp through which most Serbs passed, who were transferred from there to other camps, for example to Jasenovac or Auschwitz.

The third phase was created when the artists got a studio in the Tower and in two pavilions in 1952. Samuel Beckett's strange drama "Waiting for Godot" was supposed to be staged at the Belgrade Drama Theater, but it was banned right before the premiere. After that, the artists played it semi-secretly, or rather privately, in Mica Popović's studio at the Old Fairgrounds in front of a select audience. Word got around. Since the authorities did not take any action in this regard, the play moved to the hall of the "Borbe" building, where only 212 chairs fit. Thus, Atelier was born in 212.

Modern Serbian fine art was created in the pavilions.

Does this indicate a lack of piety immediately after the war? I don't think so. If so, it's my own fault, because I visited the studio of the late sculptor Steve Dukić, even though I knew my mom was there. But I believe that life should be celebrated at the execution grounds. In Weimar, the town next to the Buchenwald camp, an art festival is held every year at the end of summer. On the first evening, there is always a classical music concert dedicated to the victims of the camp, an opportunity to give special speeches. Then follows over a hundred theater performances, concerts of modern music, performances, lectures, various cheerful events in honor of enjoyment, life, joy.

It's good that after so many decades at the Old Fairground, I guess, something will start to be built. I don't know if the private individuals who had expanded there have already been evicted. There was also one of the headquarters of the party whose president is Aleksandar Vučić. There was also a restaurant that, in addition to everything else, also served bloody steaks.

In addition to the museum exhibit, an educational center should also be organized at the Old Fairground. I don't need it, but young people do. I took my grandchildren to the Buchenwald Memorial Center. They were shaken. Until recently, the excursions of students from Serbia were led, for example, to Vienna, but they did not visit the nearby Mauthausen, they were led to Krakow, but they did not include Auschwitz in the program. In the "old" Yugoslavia, when the famous flower, the work of the Belgrade artist Bogdan Bogdanović, was erected at Tito's suggestion, excursions regularly went to Jasenovac. Aleksandar Vučić says that on such an occasion he was there for the first time.