Two years after the mass murder at the "Vladislav Ribnikar" school of witchcraft, a working group and a multidisciplinary team, in cooperation with parents, school employees and experts - continue to coordinate their views on the construction of the Memorial Center.
As the consultation continues, many are calling for swifter action to ensure adequate memorial space.
Ali, the process of memorializing mass tragedies, according to the experience of other countries, is a very long and delicate task.
The main task of the working group is to coordinate the activities on the establishment of the Memorial Center, to make a recommendation in relation to the needs of the families of the victims and the wider community on how respect should be shown.
The working group consists of one representative of the Ministries of Education, Culture and Public Investments, representatives of the City of Belgrade and the Municipality of Vračar, the director of the "Vladislav Ribnikar" elementary school, two representatives of the families killed in that school, Aleksandra Ivanković as a representative Victim Support Europe, Sanja Ćopić as a representative of the Victimological Society of Serbia, Slavica Ševkušić as a representative of the Institute for Pedagogical Research, Ognjen Božović who is a lawyer for the victims' families.
The families of those killed also formed a so-called multidisciplinary team that conducts consultations and prepares recommendations on the establishment of the Memorial Center, its program work, the conditions of the international architectural competition and chooses the best solution.
Members of this team are professors of the Faculty of Philosophy Aleksandar Baucal and Dubravka Stojanović, then Olga Manojlović Pintar from the Institute for Recent History of Serbia, Jasmina Nikolić who is the director of the Victimology Society of Serbia, then writer for children and young people Jasminka Petrović, as well as architectural engineer Bratislav Tošković.
The working group is obliged to implement and implement their recommendations and measures through its departments and to then propose them to the Government for adoption.
Photo: Tanjug / Jadranka Ilić Two years of sadness and memories
Understanding and patience
Although the tragedy that happened on May 2023, XNUMX shook the whole society, the work of the school where it happened is still going on.
Slavica Đukić Dejanović, then Minister of Education, stated at the time that there was never any question as to whether the school would be closed.
After the tragedy, a survey was conducted among parents and employees of the school, through which 97 percent of them declared that they wanted the school to remain in the existing building until the beginning of construction work - until the decision on the Memorial Center and the beginning of reconstruction.
However, two years later, there is still no decision on the realization of the Memorial Center, although it is being worked on.
Jasmina Nikolić, director of the Victimology Society of Serbia, explains to Vreme why this is so.
"At the moment, consultations related to the construction of the Memorial Center have begun, which are in the basic phase. There have been consultations with families and school employees, and only in the next period it should be extended to the local community and the whole of Serbia. This should be the basis for announcing a tender for the Memorial Center, so that process has not advanced much," she explains.
"That process is very delicate and the multidisciplinary team and the families believe that there should be no rush," says Nikolić.
"It is a severe tragedy that left terrible consequences primarily for the families, but also for the whole society. I think that we as a society, not to mention the direct and indirect victims, have not recovered at all from that event and that we have to go step by step, sometimes going back, but that the process should ultimately bring healing to everyone who has been damaged in some way. And we all are," she says.
Through dialogue to a solution
The working group and the multidisciplinary team developed a questionnaire about what messages the Memorial Center should carry, how it should look and what content it should have.
"Interviews were conducted with families, then answers to those questions, and then with a wider circle that included the school, employees, parents of children who go to school. That first round of consultations has been completed and the reports are being arranged," explains Nikolić.
Jasmina Nikolić, as a member of the multidisciplinary team, says that they cooperate closely with the working group led by the Ministry of Education. "The proposals that the team has go to the Working Group, which approves them and forwards them to the Government. That cooperation is correct," says Nikolić.
"We need to harmonize different opinions and come to a solution that will be acceptable to everyone and send a strong message - that something like this must never happen again," concluded Nikolić.
How do parents imagine the Memorial Center?
Although many issues are disputed, one thing is certain - all parents believe that the Memorial Center is necessary.
But, shortly after the tragedy, different opinions, even arguments, came to light. Some parents believe that the memorial center should include the closed part of the school, where the shooting took place. Others think that it should only be the classroom where the most victims were killed, while others argue that the entire school should be demolished.
Žarko Cvejić, the father of the girl who was not injured in the shooting, tells "Vreme" that it would be necessary to memorialize the entire area of suffering.
"So the entrance where the guard was killed, the part behind the entrance where the two schoolgirls on duty were killed, the hallway to the right where two more students were killed and the classroom where the other children were killed. That whole space would have to become the Memorial Center, so that there would be nothing above and below it, from the ground to the sky," explained Cvejić.
He believes that this space should be physically separated from the rest of the school by an architectural solution, and that a new school should be built on the rest of the plot.
"Thus, my child and future children who will go to school there will not be forever marked by that event," said Cvejić.
Photo: Tanjug / Jadranka Ilić Primary school "Vladislav Ribnikar"
The boundary between the school and the Memorial Center?
Cvejić pointed out the fact that a school will have to remain on the site of the current "Vladislav Ribnikar" Primary School, because there is no such large plot intended for a school in the city center, and the nearest schools are too far away for this one to be completely removed.
"Children from that area have to go to school somewhere, that's understandable, and I went to that school. I'm not against the school in that place, but it must be completely separate, the entire area of suffering must be memorialized, there must be a completely separate area from the place of suffering and a clear line must be drawn," he says, adding that the name of the school should be changed, because it is forever marked by that event.
This lengthy and careful process, according to him, must be carried out systematically.
"We have already received the guidelines that are necessary in order to announce the competition in the first place, because, as we know, there are always some more important things to do here. It was more important for the authorities to put out the fire of the protest after 'Ribnikar', and then the canopy came. Just to somehow maintain the appearance that there is a school there, that there are classes, in the meantime the entire educational system has also fallen apart. The authorities only care about maintaining the appearance that some children somehow go to school," says Cvejić.
Disappointed that the school is functioning normally, Cvejić believes that the school could have been demolished a long time ago and a new one built, which would not require an international competition.
"There are standard solutions for how schools are built, it could either be extended, a part of the school next to Svetozar Marković was added to accommodate more students, that could have been completed a long time ago, but nothing was done instead," he explains.
Photo: Tanjug / Jadranka Ilić Anniversary of the tragedy at "Vladislav Ribnikar" elementary school
Why decision makers must take responsibility
Cvejić said that demolishing the old school and building a new one would not be a big problem for the children, because as he stated, there are no children and the school receives fewer and fewer students every year, because "parents are running away from this school, which is completely understandable."
Cvejić, at the invitation of the parents of the victimized children whom he knows, went to a couple of meetings with the then Minister of Education, from which, as he says, "nothing came of it", as well as with members of the multidisciplinary team, last year.
"The members are good and professional people, with a lot of will and they put a lot of work and effort into that job, but they can't do this alone. They gave recommendations, they did their part, but the state authorities, first of all the Ministry and the Government, did not do what they had to do, because they always had more work to do," explains Cvejić.
His conclusion: "I think the decision makers in the first place have to be traded."
The memorial center is being planned in memory of the victims of the mass murder of nine students and the school guard of the "Vladislav Ribnikar" Elementary School on May 3, 2023.
