ACKOVIĆ: FOR THE ROMA, THIS IS AN OPEN WOUND IN OUR BEING

DONJA GRADINA, APRIL 19 /SRNA/ - Miloš Acković, a representative of the Roma community, stated that for Roma, Donja Gradina is not merely a historical site, but an open wound in their very being and a symbol of extermination efforts aimed at erasing their culture, song, language, and existence.

“Today we stand on this silent, painful land of Donja Gradina, a place where words often lose their meaning and silence becomes the loudest witness,” Acković emphasized in his address at the commemoration of the Day of Remembrance for the victims of the Ustasha genocide in the Jasenovac concentration camp and its largest execution site, Donja Gradina in the NDH /Independent State of Croatia/. He said that today the Roma remember tens of thousands of their compatriots who, within the Jasenovac camp system, and most of all here, at the execution sites of Donja Gradina, became victims of senseless terror. Acković noted that historical research points to horrific figures, with more than 40,000 Roma brutally killed within the Jasenovac system of death camps. “Among them were entire villages, families with children, people whose only crime was their name and their origin,” Acković pointed out. He said that the silence of Donja Gradina is best understood through prayer and called on those gathered to pray for the innocent, for the children, and for a future in which such evil will never and must never repeat itself.