KARAN: BY REMEMBERING MURDERED CHILDREN, WE RENEW OUR PLEDGE THAT THEIR SUFFERING WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN

BANJA LUKA, JULY 19 /SRNA/ - There are places where words are not enough to convey the scale and horror of the suffering, and Gornji Jelovac, near Prijedor, is one such place, said the President of Republika Srpska, Siniša Karan.

On the occasion of the Day of Remembrance for Children Killed During the Genocide of Serbs, Jews and Roma in the Independent State of Croatia /NDH/ from 1941 to 1945, being observed today in Gornji Jelovac, Karan told SRNA that every child had a name, a family, took their first steps, spoke their first words, and had dreams that were cut short in the most brutal way. "The Day of Remembrance for Children Killed During the Genocide of Serbs, Jews and Roma in the NDH is a day when we pay tribute to the memory of the innocent victims and renew our pledge that their suffering will never again be consigned to silence and oblivion. A nation that forgets its suffering risks losing the truth about itself as well," Karan emphasized. He recalled that for decades after the Second World War, these crimes were spoken of only rarely, if at all, adding that the memory of the darkest period of the 20th century was preserved mainly within families. "As a result, the truth remained in the shadows and in people's memories for far too long, while the suffering of the survivors remained silent, without a voice and without the public condemnation that the victims deserved," Karan said. He stated that preserving a culture of remembrance is therefore not only a matter of the past, but also a matter of the future and the survival of the Serbian people in these areas. "It is our duty to bear witness to the truth about the Ustasha crime of genocide, so that we may preserve the memory of the innocent and build a world in which such evil will never happen again. Today, as we speak about the innocent victims who perished in Gornji Jelovac, it is our duty to ensure that their names, their suffering, and the truth about the crime remain permanently inscribed in the collective memory of our people. We owe this to those who were killed, but also to the generations that come after us," the President of Republika Srpska said.