Delegation of the Committee for Jasenovac of the SOC on the Holocaust Remembrance Day in Jerusalem

On the Eve of the Holocaust Remembrance Day, on Sunday May 1st, delegation of the Committee for Jasenovac which consisted of protosyngellos Mr Jovan Culibrk, coordinator of the Committee and monk Mr Pavle Kondic by special invitation participated the central ceremony in the Memorial institution Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. During the ceremony President of Israel Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave speeches, while the central part of the ceremony was lighting the six memorial torches in memory of six million killed Jews during the World War Two.  On behalf of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem at the ceremony Arcbishop Aristarch of Constantina, the Secretary General of the Holy Synod, participated, as well as the representatives of other Christian communities in the Holy Land. 

While the whole state leadership of the State of Israel was present at the central ceremony, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon attended the memorial service for the victims of Jasenovac at Donja Gradina, part of the Jasenovac camp located in the Republic of Srpska.

In this year's ceremony in Yad Vashem a special attention was given to suffering in former Yugoslavia. In his speech President Peres emphasized that the death camp Jasenovac was characterized by cruelty even greater than its Nazi counterparts. Among six survived victims was also Dina Bihler-Hen, born in Zagreb, whose mother managed to hide her at the Beritic family who kept her until the end of the war; all Dina's family was killed in Jasenovac.

In an organization of the Memorial complex Yad Vashem on April 29 the Seminar on  holocaust for Christian leaders has been opened and has started. At the ceremony of the opening of this seminar, during the presentation of organizers, the welcoming speech was also said by protosyngellos Mr Jovan Culibrk, whose testimony about suffering of the Serbian people, among which there were also 337 his relatives and namesakes during the World War Two in the Jasenovac camp and other camps, has a great impact on the present attendees. Participants of the seminar, twenty four of them, are representatives of several Christian denominations, who has come from all parts of the world: Finland, Czech Republic, Canada, USA, Ghana, Singapore, Germany. At the seminar, which lasts until May 9, on behalf of the Serbian Church monk Pavle Kondic, the head of the Archive and Library of the Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral. 

Josif Stankovic