Dola - a place of suffering, but also gathering and admonition: Methodius called the people to forget about divisions

Dola - a place of suffering, sadness, a place of weeping and Golgotha.

Dola – the place where, on June 7, 1943, the Volksdeutsche unit "Prince Eugen", supported by the "Handžar" division, killed 522 residents of Piva, including 109 children.

Dola - the place where the Verun family ceased to exist, and the child of Mitra and Mališa Đikanović did not even get a name - was shot at the moment of his birth.

Dola - a place of warning and a place of silence.

This year, too, the monuments talked about the suffering, the killed of the weak, about the cry that can still be heard today, about the beer's bloody fairy tale and the beer's Bethlehem.

The people of Piv gathered to commemorate the suffering of their nobles, and the holy bishop's liturgy was served by the bishop of Budimlja-Nikšić, Metodije, with the help of clergy and monks.

The bishop said that Dola is a place of suffering, but also a holy place, a place of warning and called on the people to forget about the divisions that have followed us for centuries, only changing shape and form, to forgive each other and be brothers.

"If we do not come to our senses and agree as a people, our biological survival is called into question and we will investigate ourselves. And it will no longer matter who was in which political party, or who represented what ideology. I am sure that from the eyes of the martyrs, watching us as a nation divide among ourselves, we look miserable and mournful, because we lose sight of the true essence and meaning of our human life," said Methodius.

As he said, our biggest shame is that even today we are divided on the same issues, that we persist in disagreements and invented, unsettled accounts.

"A long time ago, the people said - whoever does not want a brother for his brother, will want a foreigner for his master. And we all know what it means when a foreign boot comes and stands on the neck, as it rampaged in 1943 and those unfortunate years in these areas... If "Today, let's not forgive each other, we have nowhere to go forward and we have nothing left to hope for. Our life will become unbearable, we will not need a foreign occupier, we will judge ourselves in the worst and cruelest way," said Metodije.

As he added, if we don't "stick together to survive and make these evil times that we seem to be peaceful and free, which in a silent and perfidious way are killing the biological substance of the people by making everyone move out of these areas, because we don't give birth, and even the little that is left of us, no one talks to anyone and they are bloodied about the most unimportant things", we will disappear as a nation.

"If a critical enlightened mass is formed that will see its brother in its neighbor, then the rest of the nation will also wake up and finally the true sun of freedom, love and kindness will shine on this martyred land and this nation. Wake up, forget about divisions , to reconcile, embrace, forget all the imaginary divisions that were tens and hundreds of years ago," said Methodius.

Archpriest Stavrophorus Predrag Šćepanović, who delivered the sermon, called for reconciliation, forgiveness and togetherness.

He reminded that for decades Piva and its victims were not talked about, as if the Dol martyrs were not allowed to be mentioned publicly.

"After 63 years, the chapel of the martyrs came up to remind us that the biggest trees in Piva are the ones that grew from blood... When they submerged Piva, they submerged Piva's eye, but it turned a blind eye and this is from today around old Herzegovina, around Crna Above, around Piva, this holy temple... If anyone's sacrifice and blood had meaning, it was the sacrifice of the Piva and Dol martyrs... That is why we should come together and reconcile over the bones of these martyrs. It is likely that there were differences between them, but when insatiable death knocked on their door, they ran into each other's arms without running away from death," Šćepanović said.

The commemoration was also attended by the presidents of the Nikšić and Plužine Municipal Assemblies, Nemanja Vuković and Petar Mitrić, Deputy Russian Ambassador to Montenegro Nikolaj Rudajev, representatives of Matica Srpska in Montenegro.

The innocent victims in Doli were divided into three groups - one was men over 15 years old, the second was women and girls, and the third was children.

The order of killing was reversed. Only Miloš Glomazić, who died in 1986, survived the bloody slaughterhouse.

A memorial complex was built in those valleys in 1977, the work of sculptor Luka Tomanović.

In Piva, from June 6 to 12, 1943, 1.290 Piv residents were killed, among whom were 549 children and youth under the age of 20, because in those days there was one execution ground in each village of the Piva parish.

In 2017, the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) canonized all the victims of the crime in Piva, and their memorial day is June 7.

After the communion of those gathered, a celebratory cake was consecrated and cut, brought by this year's host Milenko Mićanović, while next year's host will be Zdravko Aprcović.

"Let this be a warning to us to never quarrel, but to reconcile and come together and that there will never be another killing ground like this," said this year's gathering host Milenko Mićanović.

Representatives of the Municipality of Plužina, led by the president of the SO Mitrić, as well as fighters and communists, laid wreaths at one of the three memorials in Doli.

At the end, an appropriate cultural and artistic program was held.

The organizers of the commemoration are the Culture Center of Plužine and the Diocese of Budimljansko-Nikšić.

Brothers brought closer by suffering

With the people of Pivlja were also brothers from Velika and Gornja Ržanica, who were brought together by the same trouble and the same suffering.

There, on July 28, 1944, the same SS unit, supported by the mountain "Skenderbeg" division, killed about 800 people, women and children, in the most brutal way.

"We cannot and will not forget our innocent victims, because forgetting would lead us to a situation where the same crime would happen again one day. Piva and Velika were even more closely connected by very similar suffering, our spirit of freedom, honesty, faith in Christ and the name Srbinovo. That's why we are together with you today, on this holy day, a day of remembrance and prayer for our brothers and relatives of Piv", said Duško Gojković and invited the people of Piv to be their guests on July 28, when the anniversary of the suffering of the innocent people of Velika is celebrated.