Serbia is a country in South-Eastern Europe with Belgrade as its capital. Between the eighth and the thirteenth centuries, Serbia evolved from a Principality to a Kingdom. From 1540 to 1878, Serbia was part of the Ottoman Empire. Emerging victorious from the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, Serbia was able to extend its territory.
After World War I, it united with its neighbouring states to form the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (since 1929 Kingdom of Yugoslavia). During the German occupation of Serbia in World War II, Roma were subjected to racist laws. Many were deported to concentration camps, and thousands fell victim to notorious ‘hostage shootings’.
Roma in Serbia from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century
The existing research and literature are still insufficient to precisely illuminate the background, migration flows, and settlement of Roma in the Balkans and Serbia. The oldest documented mention of Roma in Serbia dates from 1467/68. However, the presence of Christian Roma in Serbia, as documented in later Ottoman records and censuses, indicates that they must have lived there before the period of Ottoman rule, which began in the fourteenth century and is closely linked to the emergence of new and larger groups of Roma in Serbia.
Roma were spread across various parts of Serbia, with the primary difference among them being their religious affiliation. In the 1522 census of the European part of the Ottoman Empire (Rumelia), 17,191 Romani households were registered.1Acković, Romi u Beogradu; Vukanović, Romi (Cigani) u Jugoslaviji; Zirojević, “Cigani u Srbiji;” Vukanović, “The Gypsy Population.”
During Ottoman rule, the attitude towards Roma seems to have been relatively tolerant, with no known evidence of persecution or threats to their ethnic and cultural identity; in legal terms they were theoretically equal and protected.
In social reality, however, Roma were discriminated against and marginalised, with reports suggesting that Muslim Roma were not permitted to use Muslim places of worship or cemeteries and were recorded separately from other Muslims in administrative records.
The fact that their administrative status was based on ethnic, not religious affiliation, resulted in the differential taxation of Muslim and Orthodox Roma, with both groups paying the tax of non-believers [haraç], but Muslim Roma paying slightly less. Only in individual cases, if they could prove that they regularly fulfilled their religious obligations, could Muslim Roma be exempted from this tax.
For tax purposes, all ‘nomadic’ and many ‘sedentary’ Roma were recorded in special lists. To ensure collection, within smaller Roma groups one person was appointed as the ‘elder’ [ceribaša], who represented the community before the tax collector and additionally had very broad administrative and even judicial authority over a respective Roma community.
After the liberation of Serbia from Ottoman rule, the elders were given the name ‘knez’, which later changed to ‘kmet’ [leader].2Janković, “Pravni status Roma,” 298–301, 304, 308. This institution continued to exist into the interwar period and even during the German occupation, with the elders being deployed in similar functions as intermediaries by the German occupying forces.
In the legislation and practice of Serbia after the second Serbian uprising 1815, attempts to (voluntarily) ‘sedentarise’ the ‘nomadic’ Roma and transition them from the Ottoman taxation system to the general tax regime took place in the framework of a reform in 1839, under which Roma were to receive state land for settlement.3Ibid., 303, 313.
In the first half of the twentieth century, in the spirit of Yugoslav nation-building, Roma in Serbia started to establish their own organisations. In 1927, the ‘First Serbian-Gypsy Association for Mutual Aid in Sickness and Death’ [Prva Srpsko-Ciganska Zadruga za uzajamno pomaganje u bolesti i smrti] was founded as a humanitarian and cultural association.
In 1935, the newspaper Romano Lil/Ciganske Novine [Roma Letter/Gypsy Newspaper], was launched; it was published by the Romani lawyer and activist Svetozar Simić (1913–1979) for three months. That same year, the Belgrade ‘Roma Association of Worshippers of Bibija-Tetkica’ [Udruženje beogradskih Cigana svečara Bibije (Tetkice)] was registered, aimed at preserving traditional Roma celebrations.
In Niš, Muslim Roma founded the choral society ‘Harmony’ [Muslimanske pevačke družine ‘Sloga’] in 1925, as well as the ‘Association of all Muslims living at the Stočni Trg in Niš for Mutual Aid in Case of Death’ [Udruženje svih Muslimana živećih u Nišu na Stočnom Trgu za uzajamnu pomoć na slučaju smrti] in 1929 and the sports club ‘Gajret’ in 1930.
These initiatives indicate that Roma enjoyed a certain established social position which could have been a catalyst for further collective prosperity if these developments had not been halted by the outbreak of World War II.
Both the methodological shortcomings of the censuses and questions over Romani self-identification make it impossible to ascertain the exact number of Roma living in Serbia on the eve of World War II. According to the census of 1921 there were 16,674 Roma in northern Serbia, 14,489 in southern Serbia (including Kosovo and Macedonia), and 3,756 in Vojvodina (officially ‘Banat, Bačka and Baranja’ province).
According to the 1931 census, 8,919 Roma lived in the Morava, 491 in the Vrbas, 24,494 in the Vardar and 6,537 in the Zeta Banovinas, which together roughly made up the territory of Serbia before the administrative reorganisation of 1929.4Vojak, U predvečerje rata, 69; Publikationsstelle Wien, Die Gliederung, 16, 18–20. It is important to note that the choice of criteria used in the censuses to categorise the state’s citizens always served political aims (such as emphasising a unified Yugoslav identity), and this severely impaired the accuracy of the censuses.5Greble, Muslims, 167.
Serbia under German Occupation
After the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers in April 1941, the territory of present-day Serbia was divided into several occupation zones. The northern Bačka region with the towns of Novi Sad, Subotica and Sombor was annexed by Hungary, while the northwestern region of Srem was absorbed into the Independent State of Croatia.
In the Banat, bordering Romania, the local German population established its own autonomous administrative system, but formally the region remained under the military governorate established by the German occupation forces in Belgrade which included central, western and eastern Serbia, up to northern Kosovo. Finally, the town of Pirot and a small proportion of South-Eastern Serbia were occupied by Bulgaria with German authorisation.
Although some territorial changes took place in the course of the occupation, such as for example the expansion of the Bulgarian sphere of influence and the entry of German troops into the Bačka region in 1944 as a consequence of the German occupation of Hungary, the legal systems introduced, and in particular the anti-Roma measures, officially remained in force until the end of the war in all parts of the German occupied zone.
German Administration and Serbian Collaborationist Government
In central Serbia, the German occupying forces established a military occupation system as early as April 1941; it was headed by the Military Commander in Serbia, a position held until 31 May 1941 by General Helmuth Förster (1889–1965). He was followed by General Ludwig von Schröder (1884–1941) and General Heinrich Danckelmann (1887–1947), who was in office from 29 July to 20 October 1941.
In mid-September 1941, in face of the need to repress the partisan insurrection, the new office of Plenipotentiary Commanding General in Serbia was established, and this replaced the position of the Military Commander as of October 1941. General Franz Böhme (1885–1947) was appointed to this position on 16 September and was followed by General Paul Bader (1883–1971), who held the position from 6 December to 2 February 1942.
During the first year of occupation, two staffs were subordinate to the Military Commander: The Command Staff [Kommandostab], led by Lieutenant Colonel Erich Gravenhorst (biographical data unknown), was entrusted with operational tasks, while the Administrative Staff [Verwaltungsstab], led by SS-Gruppenführer Harald Turner (1891–1947), was assigned administrative tasks. Turner supervised and instructed the four Field Commands [Feldkommandanturen], subdivided into nine District Commands [Kreiskommandanturen]. In November 1942, Turner was replaced by Dr Egon Bönner (1901–1981), and in January 1943 the Administrative Staff was downgraded to an Administrative Department and subordinated to the Command Staff.
The Einsatzgruppe [Task Force] of the Security Police and the Security Service for Serbia, commanded by SS-Oberführer Wilhelm Fuchs (1898–1947), contained within its Department IV (Gestapo) a section for Jews [Judenreferat], headed by SS-Untersturmführer Fritz Stracke (biographical data unknown).
This Einsatzgruppe was officially subordinate to Turner, but simultaneously received its orders from the Reich Security Main Office in Berlin. Such ramification of the chain of command was typical for the German occupation system in Serbia and often led to confusion and power struggles between the various positions and institutions.
A significant change occurred in early 1942, when the police apparatus was reorganised and the position of Higher SS and Police Leader was introduced in Serbia. It was entrusted to SS-Gruppenführer August Meyszner (1886–1947), subordinate to SS-Standartenführer Emanuel Schäfer (1900–1974) as the Chief of the Security Police and Security Service. From that moment onwards, the power of Turner, until then one of the main proponents of and driving force behind the policy of persecution of Jews and the Roma in occupied Serbia, was greatly reduced. As early as December 1941, after the departure of General Böhme, the execution of ‘hostage shootings’ was handed over to the military administration and the Security Police.
In parallel with the organisation of the military occupation system, the Germans decided to form a Serbian civilian government that would deal exclusively with internal administrative matters. At the end of April 1941, the so-called Commissioner Government [Komesarska vlada] was established, headed by Milan Aćimović (1898–1945), which however was replaced as early as August of the same year by the Government of National Salvation [Vlada narodnog spasa] of General Milan Nedić (1877–1946).
The Serbian administration’s key section was the Special Police Department, which was subdivided into seven units. In the beginning, the unit responsible for ‘Jewish matters’ and headed by Jovan (‘Joca’) Nikolić (born 1907) was referred to as the ‘Police for Jews’ but was renamed ‘Section for Jews and Gypsies’ [Odsek za Jevreje i Cigane] when the unit was subsumed under the organisational structure of the Department of Special Police. The department was in turn controlled by a commissioner of Section IV B4 of the Gestapo; the first to occupy the position was Otto Vincent (born 1913), who was replaced by Egon Sabukoschek (1918–1995) in early summer 1941.
Racial Laws against Jews and Roma
In the period between mid-April and mid-July 1941, the German occupation authorities introduced all anti-Jewish and anti-Roma legislation and set up the necessary police bodies to control the two minorities, thus laying the foundation for their separation from the rest of the Serbian population and the preconditions for extensive control over their existence.
Between 20 and 22 May, the first measures were taken in which the same restrictions were imposed on Roma as on Jews: through the Order on the Press [Uredba o štampi], Order on Theatre Management [Uredba o vođenju pozorišta], Order on Cinemas [Uredba o radu bioskopa] and the Order on Cabarets and Variety Shows [Uredba o kabaretima i varietetima], Roma were excluded from any activities related to media, entertainment and cultural production in general.
On 30 May 1941, the Military Commander in Serbia issued the ‘Decree on Jews and Gypsies’ [Verordnung betreffend die Juden und Zigeuner / Naredba koja se odnosi na Jevreje i Cigane]. Under its terms, Roma were to be treated like Jews, although they would be registered separately. The decree defined ‘Gypsy’ as someone who has at least three ‘Gypsy grandparents’; ‘Gypsy Mischlinge’ married to ‘Gypsies’ were to be considered ‘Gypsies’ as well.
Furthermore, in an echo of the regulations for Jews, Roma were ordered to wear yellow armbands with the inscription ‘Gypsy’ and were banned from using public transport and frequenting public places, as well as from any employment as lawyers, doctors, veterinarians, pharmacists, teachers and several other professions. The Serbian Special Police had the task of checking that the decree was enforced and adhered to.
This decree was followed by registration of the Jewish and Romani population throughout Serbia. By mid-July 1941, 3,050 Roma had been registered in Belgrade alone; the newspaper ‘Novo Vreme’ published the data on several other towns, such as Leskovac, where 1,500 Roma were registered, Obrenovac (652 Roma) and Požarevac (1,943 Roma).
On 11 July 1941, Deputy Chief of the Military Administration Georg Kießel (1907–1950) wrote to the provisional head of the Ministry of the Interior. On behalf of the Military Commander in Serbia, he ordered an amendment of the ‘Decree on Jews and Gypsies’ of 30 May. Kießel suggested that ‘Serbian citizens of Gypsy descent’ who could prove that they had a respected occupation and led a regular way of life and whose ancestors could be proven to have been settled since at least 1850, should, for the time being, not be subject to the terms of the decree.6Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes (PA AA), Gesandtschaft Belgrad, AZ Pol 3 Nr. 4c, Paket 62/6: Correspondence between the Croatian Foreign Ministry, the German Embassy in Zagreb, the Foreign Office in Belgrade and the Military Commander in Serbia.
The considerations that led to the amendment of the decree have not been conclusively clarified in the historiography. However, from the brief statement introducing the order (‘In order to eliminate certain hardships which have resulted from the implementation of my Decree on Jews and Gypsies of 30.5.1941 […].’) we can conclude that there must have been protests or requests for clarification.
An example of such an objection is the one forwarded by the Reis-ul-Ulema (Grand Mufti of Yugoslavia) in Sarajevo and the Imam of Višegrad whose religious jurisdiction and responsibility covered Muslims living in Serbia. In a ‘Promemoria’ to the German Embassy in Zagreb on 19 June 1941, the Ministry of Foreign affairs of the Independent State of Croatia requested on behalf of the Muslim religious authorities that the Roma of Muslim faith in Serbia be considered as and treated like ‘Aryans’ and not like ‘Gypsies’, precisely because of their religious affiliation.
We can surmise that the motives for such an intervention lay in the special social position of the so-called ‘White Gypsies’, settled and in most cases highly assimilated Muslim Roma living in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Muslim authorities’ benevolent attitude towards them, which was extended to Muslim Roma living in Serbia in the face of their persecution by the German occupiers.
Another example highlighting Romani agency, which allows us to gain insights into internal differences of class and self-identification among settled Belgrade Roma, is a letter to the mayor of Belgrade, Dragomir ‘Dragi’ Jovanović (1902–1946) signed by 26 Roma from Belgrade on 5 June 1941. In it, the signatories invoke the fact that they have been settled for generations, their national feeling as Serbs and their military and tax services for the Serbian people and state. Based on these considerations, they ask the mayor to amend the regulation of 30 May inasmuch as they do not want to be equated with ‘Jews’. Further, they ask to be allowed to work in the cultural sector again and demand that they, as ‘old settlers’, do not want to be equated with those ‘Gypsies’ who have recently arrived in Belgrade and who allegedly ‘beg and steal’.7Letter in Serbian language published in Acković, Romi u Beogradu, 251. The German version of the letter can be found at: Istorijski arhiv Beograda (IAB), OGB, b. 590: „An Herrn Polizeipräsident der Stadt Belgrad”.
It is not known whether this appeal was ultimately successful for the signatories and their families, nor how many Serbian Roma managed to fulfil the conditions of the 11 July regulation and thus to avoid racial persecution and discrimination, but it seems very likely that these and similar interventions led to the shift in the policy of the German occupation authorities noted above.
Mass Arrests and Reprisal Shootings
In September 1941, the first arrests of groups of Roma who were accused of being supporters of the partisans took place in the village of Meljak near Belgrade. They were taken to the Banjica concentration camp and shot together with other political prisoners from the camp a few days later.
These arrests can be placed within a development that was first put into words in a letter from Turner dated 21 September 1941. In response to the acute threat to German war aims in Serbia, which Turner describes, he recommends not only the arrest of Serbs accused of supporting the insurgents, but also the arrest of all ‘Jews’ and all ‘Gypsies’.8Staatsarchiv Nürnberg, NOKW-892, Harald Turner, Status report, 21. September 1941, p. 5: „Ebenso wäre die schon eingeleitete Inhaftierung sämtlicher Juden in verschärfter Form durchzuführen und zugleich die Inhaftierung der Zigeuner.” [‘Similarly, the imprisonment of all Jews, which has already been initiated, should be carried out in a more severe form, and at the same time the imprisonment of Gypsies.’].
In the month of October, arrests, internments and shootings of Roma increased sharply, as part of repressive measures that the occupiers took against the civilian population to put an end to the partisan resistance.
On 4 October 1941, Plenipotentiary Commanding General Böhme, reacting to the unexpectedly fierce resistance of the partisans, introduced a quota according to which 100 ‘Serbian prisoners’ should be shot for every German killed and 50 for every German wounded. In the beginning, the main category for reprisal shootings were communists who were already imprisoned in concentration camps, but as early as 10 October Böhme ordered that ‘all communists, male inhabitants suspected of being communists, all Jews and a certain number of nationalist and pro-democratic inhabitants’ should be arrested as ‘hostages’.9Bundesarchiv, RH 24-18/213, Annex 48, pp. 163–166, Order (No. 2848/41 classified) of the Plenipotentiary Commanding General in Serbia, signed Böhme, in: Heim et al., VEJ 14, p. 381. While the shootings had previously been carried out by the auxiliary police in Turner’s service, now it was the Wehrmacht—in theory specifically the units who had suffered the losses—that organised and implemented the mass executions.
The first time Roma appear in the correspondence about reprisal shootings was 9 October, when the Einsatzgruppe of the Security Police and the Security Service reported that 2,200 ‘hostages’—‘805 Jews and Gypsies from the camp in Šabac’ and the rest from Topovske Šupe concentration camp in Belgrade—were due to be shot in retaliation for the killing of 22 German soldiers near the town of Topola on 2 October.10Manoschek, “Serbien ist judenfrei,” 91.
On 21 October, 2,300 male locals (mainly Serbs and Jews) along with at least 250 Roma from the town of Kragujevac and its surroundings, were shot in retaliation for another fatal partisan attack on German units. On 26 October, Turner sent a circular to all Field and District Commands urging them to place male Jews and Roma at the disposal of the troops to be shot in reprisal executions. As justification he stated that ‘it is necessary to start from the premise that Jews and Gypsies generally represent an element of insecurity, thus representing a threat to public order and security’.11Staatsarchiv Nürnberg, NOKW-802, Harald Turner, Circular to all Field and District Commands in occupied Serbia concerning Jews and Gypsies, 26 October 1941.
In the following days, there began the operation to arrest the male Roma of Belgrade. According to estimates by the State Commission for Determining the Crimes of the Occupiers and their Collaborators, around 1,000 Belgrade Roma were arrested and brought to the Topovske šupe camp, from which they were taken to Jabuka, a village near the town of Pančevo, a few days later, and shot by Wehrmacht units.
Other reprisal shootings of Roma took place in Leskovac in December 1941 and in nearby Niš throughout the years 1942 and 1943, with the largest loss of life occurring in February 1943. The Niš district was nevertheless one of the regions where a relatively high proportion of the male Roma survived. The reason for this presumably lies in their deployment as forced labourers.
From compensation files and other sources, it becomes clear that many Roma men and boys were compelled to work locally or transported as forced labourers to the Bor mines and Bulgaria, as well as to camps and factories in Germany. Many of them returned to their hometowns after the war.
So far, further German mass shootings of Roma in other places in Serbia have not been documented from historical sources, but the research on this topic is still ongoing. It is very likely that many Roma fell victim to general anti-partisan operations and reprisal actions all over Serbia, which lacked systematic character. It can be assumed, however, that the antigypsyist stereotype of Roma being unreliable and opportunistic, working as spies or supporters of partisan units, resulted in them being targeted frequently by such actions.
Furthermore, collaborating Chetniks of Dragoljub ‘Draža’ Mihailović (1893–1946) committed crimes against Muslim Roma as part of the massacres perpetrated against the Muslim population of the south-western parts of Serbia (Sandžak) in 1943. The reprisal policies resulted in the destruction of almost the entire male Jewish population of Serbia, as well as the death of approximately 2,500 male Roma and thousands of Serbian civilians.
Sajmište Concentration Camp
On 5 December 1941, General Böhme proposed the concentration of the remaining Jewish and Romani population of occupied Serbia, suggesting that both groups could be proven to have engaged in intelligence activities on behalf of the insurgents. The report also contained the explanation for the postponement of the deportation of ‘women and children of the insurgents’ to the Banat.12Zbornik NOR, tom. I, vol. 1, Document no. 276, 624–625. Presumably as a consequence of this report, the remaining Jews in occupied Serbia, mainly women and children, were interned in the Sajmište concentration camp (’Judenlager Semlin’) between 8 and 12 December.
At the same time, about 600 Roma women and children from Belgrade and the surrounding villages were arrested by Serbian gendarmes and policemen in their neighbourhoods, transferred to Sajmište and interned there in a separate pavilion on the former fairgrounds. Living conditions were extremely harsh; according to the records kept by the Civil Registry Service of the Representative Body of the Jewish Community [Matičnog ureda Predstavništva jevrejske zajednice], about ten percent of Roma women and children interned died in the period between December 1941 and April 1942.
In the period between the second half of December and April 1942, many Roma were released because they managed to obtain the necessary certificate confirming their residence in Belgrade since 1850, and were therefore removed from the ‘Gypsy’ registration lists and subsequently allowed to return to their homes.
After the war, it was these released women who testified to the new Yugoslav authorities about what had happened to them, to their husbands and to other male family members.
Rescue and Resistance
Although historiography has not yet dealt in depth with the rescue of Roma or their participation in the partisan liberation struggle, there are some known cases in which groups of Roma or individuals were saved from persecution thanks to external intervention.
One such example is the story of Dr Sava Stanojević (1898–1982). According to several accounts by Roma eyewitnesses, Stanojević, who worked as a physician in the town of Trstenik, saved the Roma community of the nearby settlement Osaonica from arrest and removal by proclaiming a false typhoid epidemic.
In Belgrade, according to the testimony by Sava Sremčević (biographical data unknown), some Roma were saved by declaring themselves to be of Romanian nationality and receiving the protection of the Romanian consular authorities in Serbia.13Acković, Romi u Beogradu, 245.
There were also many Roma who joined the anti-fascist partisan movement. Some of the most well-known examples are Slobodan Berberski (1919–1989), who fought as a partisan and went on to become a writer, Romani rights activist and the first president of the International Romani Union after the war, or Milica Katić (around 1905–1943), who joined the partisan resistance in summer 1941 after her village had been raided and was deployed for spying on enemy positions and guiding partisan units to them.
Stevan Đorđević Novak (1919–1943), who distinguished himself as a fighter, is said to have served as the commander of a partisan detachment and was killed in action, for which he received the Order of the People’s Hero [Orden narodnog heroja], one of the highest decorations of Socialist Yugoslavia.
Many testimonies before the State Commission reveal varying degrees of scope of action for Roma living under German occupation. Examples that illustrate the agency of Roma in the fight for their own lives and those of their families include Anifa Ašimović (biographical data unknown), a Romni from Niš, who describes in her testimony how she saved her son from being arrested by hiding him under pillows,14AJ, 110-526, p. 436, testimony by Anifa Ašimović to the Serbian State Commission, 14 February 1945. or Sabrija Kadrijević (b. around 1899), who reports that her daughter Balka (biographical data unknown) took her arrested father’s coat to prison after he had been denied the opportunity to dress properly when he was arrested, and then later joined the partisans to avenge her father’s death.15AJ, 110-526, p. 439, testimony by Sabrija Kadrijević to the Serbian State Commission, 14 February 1945.
Post-War Investigations and Remembrance
In the post-war period in Yugoslavia, no particular measures were taken against those responsible for the crimes committed against Roma, despite the fact that the State Commission recognised in its reports that the Roma had been victims of racial persecution.16AJ, 110-613, pp. 539–541, Report of the Serbian State Commission for Determining Crimes of the Occupiers and their Collaborators on ‘The racial persecution of Gypsies from Belgrade and the surrounding area with a general overview of the persecution of Gypsies in Serbia’ [Rasni progon Cigana iz Beograda i blize okoline sa opštim osvrtom na progon Cigana u Srbiji], Belgrade, without date [1945]. There are no known cases of war crimes trials against perpetrators before the Yugoslav military courts where the issue of genocide and racial persecution against the Roma was included in the indictments, even if it was mentioned in the proceedings.
In the court ruling against Turner, Kießel and others, although their responsibility for killing Jews was frequently mentioned, the killing of Roma is never brought up. The verdict against Karl Freiherr von Bothmer (1880–1947), Field Commander in Niš, mentions his responsibility for submitting lists of ‘suspicious persons’, Jews and Roma, according to which the Gestapo conducted arrests and internments.17Lopičić, Nemački ratni zločini, 51–55, 102, 114, 127.
Finally, although hundreds of Roma survivors from all over Serbia testified before the State Commission and claimed compensation for their own or their relatives’ persecution, there seems to have been no large-scale compensation pay-out.
The history of the Roma genocide was long unknown to the broader public and neglected in official historiography and memory throughout Yugoslavia. Even in the cases where, going beyond the undifferentiated and heroic remembrance of the national liberation struggle in socialist Yugoslavia, the history of the Shoah in Serbia was researched and discussed, Roma were relegated to a secondary place in relation to the suffering of the Jews.
It is only in the last few years that the topic has emerged in public and become the subject of debate, however limited, and this is largely thanks to the efforts of eminent Roma activists like Slobodan Berberski and Žarko Jovanović (1925–1985), but also of Roma activist scholars like Dragoljub Acković (born 1952) and Raјko Đurić (1947–2020), and then of historians. But it has still not been given an appropriate place in the Serbian culture of remembrance of World War II.
In 2007, 16 December was officially designated international Remembrance Day for Roma Victims of World War II. The date was chosen in memory of 16 December 1942, when Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) ordered the systematic deportation of Sinti and Roma to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp in the so-called Auschwitz Decree. In Serbia, the official commemoration ceremony is held at the shooting site Stratište in Jabuka, near Pančevo, where, since the renewal of the memorial plaque on the site in 2019, the wheel symbolising the Roma appears alongside the Orthodox cross and the Star of David in memory of those who were killed there.
Annual commemorations, mostly of a private rather than public character, are organised by members of Roma communities in some towns and villages where mass shootings of Roma took place during the German occupation, such as in Leskovac on 11 December. Another instance of local memory culture is Trstenik, where the rescue scheme devised by Sava Stanojević is commemorated in the form of a theatre play called ‘The Gypsy Sorrow’ [Ciganska Bol]. The play used to be publicly staged every year on the anniversary of the rescue, which local Roma celebrate to this day.
