NUŽDIĆ: THE NDH CRIME AGAINST SERBS IN DRAKULIĆ - THE MOST MONSTROUS SYSTEMATIC EXTERMINATION OF INNOCENT PEOPLE

BANJA LUKA, JANUARY 31 /SRNA/ – The Ustasha crime against Serb civilians in the Banja Luka villages of Šargovac, Drakulić, and Motike in February 1942, which did not spare children, is one of the most monstrous examples of the systematic extermination of innocent people, Viktor Nuždić, Acting Director of the Republika Srpska Research Centre of War, War Crimes, and Tracing Missing Persons, told SRNA.

Nuždić recalled that in just one day, in an organisd operation conducted by Ustasha units of the Independent State of Croatia /NDH/, entire families were brutally murdered in the most horrific manner. "The particular gravity of this crime lies in the fact that children were killed in a school classroom, which places this atrocity among the darkest pages of European history. People without weapons, without guilt, without any chance to defend themselves, solely because they were Serbs and of the Orthodox faith were being killed," Nuždić said. Nuždić stated that today, more than eight decades after this crime, there is growing concern over increasingly frequent attempts at historical revisionism and the rehabilitation of Ustasha ideology. He warns that such revisionist attempts are not merely falsifications of historical facts, but represent a continuation of violence against the victims, a second act of the same crime, this time against truth and remembrance. "When Ustasha crimes are silenced or justified, a dangerous message is sent that crime is acceptable if ‘ideologically justified,’ which is a path that leads to the repetition of historical tragedies," Nuždić emphasized. He noted that remembering the victims of Šargovac, Drakulić, and Motike is not a call for revenge or hatred, but for moral responsibility. The Banja Luka settlement of Drakulić, tomorrow marks 84 years since the NDH crime against Serb civilians in the villages of Drakulić, Šargovac, and Motike, and at the Rakovac mine outside Banja Luka on February 7, 1942, when in a single day 2,315 Serbs were brutally killed, including 551 children.