The Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government and the Museum of Genocide Victims have signed a Protocol on Cooperation today, which envisages encouraging cooperation between the Museum and Local Self-government Units in the Republic of Serbia, with the aim of preserving the culture of remembrance.
After signing the Protocol, the Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, Marija Obradović, has said that today’s act should contribute to preserving the culture of remembrance of all victims of genocide, no matter whether they were Serbian nationals or nationals of other countries killed in World War II in our region.
“This is the first document of this kind with which MDULS strives to support the activities and efforts of the Museum to preserve the memory of all innocent victims and victims of the war in the best possible way,” Obradović has said.
She has added that MDULS will encourage all Local Self-government Units to cooperate with the Museum, with the goal of presenting to their fellow citizens all museum material on victims of genocide, which shall enable Serbian citizens to see, and for some to witness for the first time ever, the scale of crimes committed in the Second World War.
“We must not allow those whose lives were snuffed in death camps to disappear from our memories, and that is why this Museum is of special importance – because it preserves the memory of them, but also teaches new generations what happened in this region and how many lives were laid down by our people in order to win freedom”, Obradović has concluded.
The director of the Museum of Genocide Victims, Dejan Ristić, has said that the goal of this national cultural institution is to create a community of knowledge, based on knowledge of historical facts and reverence for victims of genocide against the Serbian people, Holocaust victims and Samudaripen victims in World War II.
“This year, or more precisely on 22 April when the National Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Genocide, the Holocaust and Samudaripen is marked, the Museum of Genocide Victims is celebrating 30 years of its existence. That is why the signing of this document today with MDULS is especially important, because although the Museum is already cooperating with a number of local self-governments, we realized that we need to establish cooperation with the relevant ministry in order to react systematically, and not ad hoc,” Ristić has said.
He has added that the Museum will try to expand its activities to the entire territory of the Republic of Serbia, in order to safeguard the memory of our victims from human and historical oblivion. Ristić has said that we have an obligation to preserve the memory of the victims as intact and objective, based on facts, and to fight against revisionism and falsification of history, which is something that we can only do together.
Photo gallery – source: MDULS and Tanjug
