The fate of the Memorial Complex "Boško Buha" on Jabuca near Prijepolje has recently been called into question again, although three years ago it was agreed that it should become the property of the state and that a model be found for its future use.
The complex on Jabuca belongs to the hospitality and tourism company "Putnik" from Prijepolje, which is in bankruptcy. In order to collect the debt, the Agency for the Licensing of Bankruptcy Trustees put the property of "Traveler" up for auction by public bidding and scheduled it for January 28.
Considering that the auction advertisement was published according to the decision of the Commercial Court in Uzice and according to the Bankruptcy Law, everything would be fine and as it should be there are no two "buts".
The first "but" is that the decision to sell the "Boško Buha" Memorial Complex is equal to the decision to sell the Mileševa Monastery - a cultural asset that is also located on the territory of Prijepolje.
Another "but" is that the sale of the Complex was stopped in 2019 after stormy reactions from the public and a citizen's petition. At that time, the bidding for the "Boško Buha" Memorial Home, the Museum of Pioneers and Youth of Yugoslavia, the House of Culture, guest accommodation pavilions and the "Jabuka" villa was abandoned, and the "Putnik" hotel, which is outside the memorial complex, was sold.
The "Boško Buha" memorial complex was declared an immovable cultural property of exceptional importance in 1986. It was built in honor of Boško Buha, who was seventeen years old when he died on Jabuka in 1943, the youngest holder of the Order of the National Hero of Yugoslavia, but also in memory of the children and young people who died fighting in the People's Liberation War. The money for the construction of the Complex, apart from donations, was collected from the "pioneer dinar" - the contribution of children from the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, an action that has never been implemented in these areas before or since. The monument to Boško Buha is the brainchild of a girl named Jadranka Berić from Gornji Milanovac, who won the contest "How do I imagine a monument to Boško Buha" in which 6069 pioneers from SFRY participated.
The Complex built in this way was unique in Serbia and Yugoslavia: space for recreational classes, school excursions, summer and winter holidays, camps, workshops, sports activities and meeting thousands of children and young people of Yugoslavia. Even while the country was falling apart, the Apple was a kind of "seventh continent".
Everything that was agreed about the Complex three years ago could be canceled next Friday.
In the current advertisement for public bidding, the Agency divided the property of UTP "Putnik" into three units. In the first, there are 13 tourism facilities identified by real estate numbers and cadastral parcels, not by names; in the second there is a cultural building and land, and in the third there is land.
If the plots listed in the ad are compared with the data on the Geosrbija website, it can be seen that they are all part of the Memorial Complex, so it can be concluded that the sale that failed three years ago will take place on Friday.
The public learned about the planned auction of "Boško Buha" from a letter from the Society of Conservators of Serbia (DKS), in which they called on the Ministry of Culture and Information and the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Social and Veteran Affairs, the municipality of Prijepolje and the competent institutions to prevent it and fulfill the previous agreement .
"The least you can do today, as responsible decision-makers, is to immediately prevent the renewed idea of alienating this common heritage, because respecting and preserving the Memorial Complex dedicated to Boško Buha and other young fighters, who gave their lives in the Second World War, is more than obligation," he writes at the end of the letter sent by DKS to the state.
There are still four working days until the auction.
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