A funeral service was held for the victims of fascist reprisals in the village of Pljeval

In the village of Sažići in the Pljevlja local community of Crljenica, a memorial service was held for the victims of fascist reprisals on December 7, 1941, when 67 residents of that village, mostly women and children, were killed.

In addition to the relatives, neighbors and descendants of the victims, the President of the Pljevlja Municipality Dario Vraneš also attended the Opel, which is the first time after more than 82 years since the tragedy that the leader of the Municipality paid respect to the civilian victims in Crljenice.

Addressing the crowd, Vraneš said that the events of the past are a warning for the future.

"This is the first time that the local government officially visits this holy place and pays homage to all the innocent victims. 82 years ago, the Italian occupier killed 67 people, many of whom were children, in the most brutal way. The youngest victim, Jelenka Terzić, was only 37 days old! In order to know and feel the time in which we live and our future, we must look back at our past. The motive for this atrocious crime is the other atrocious crime committed by the Communists against the Italian soldiers and it was the cause of this retaliation against the innocent population. Only thanks to the intervention of the then mayor of the municipality Bogdan Nenadić and Dragica Šećerović, this retaliation was prevented from having much larger proportions. We as a people must understand that it is necessary to follow serious people, not adventurers at all. Let the events of the past be a warning for the future," said Vraneš and added that the local administration will try to honor the victims in this and other places of the municipality in the future.

Speaking about the suffering of the residents of this region, prof. Dr. Zoran Terzić, medical director of KCCG, said that the suffering of the population at that time was the biggest disaster that hit the village of Crljenice in recent history.

"After the Battle of Pljeval and the conflict with the partisans on December 1, 1941, the units of the Italian mountain division of Pusterija located in Prijepolje were ordered to carry out unjust reprisals against the innocent Serbian population of this region. On December 7, Italian soldiers shot 67 residents of this region in retaliation, along the then road that connected Prijepolje and Pljevlja. In Crljenice and Otilovići, 41 locals died, and in Jabuca, 26 women and children. The names of those injured were mentioned today. The only common grave in the Pljeval region, which reminds us of that suffering and innocent victims, is the grave of the Terzić family in the village of Sažići, near which we gathered. The Terzić family, unfortunately, suffered the most in the events related to the Battle of Pljeval and in the Italian retaliation they lost as many as 24 of their members in one day. Mostly it was children, women, old people who were shot. The occupiers did not spare even the children in the cradle. Our great-grandfathers welcomed the Italian army with banners placed in front of the houses on which were icons of Saint Nicholas, the family's baptismal glory and the patron saint of our race, as well as bread and salt offered as a sign of kindness and hospitality. However, the soldiers surrounded the houses of Terzić and took everyone they found to be shot, without exception, from a 37-day-old baby, two- and three-year-old children, youth, women, old people, few of them ran or escaped from the shooting range in time. At that time, 20 Terzićs were shot in the village of Sažići alone, and four more in the village of Bukovik. Houses, barns and all ancillary facilities were burned," Terzic said.

Archpriest Stavrofor Saša Janjić pointed out that Christians have no right to hate, they must forgive, but they should not forget either.

"It is difficult to talk about crime without hating the enemy and the criminal. As Christians, we have no right to hate, nor do we have the right to sanctify ourselves. The Gospel tells us that it is in God's hands, that revenge is his. We have to forgive, but we must not forget, so that these things do not happen again to us as they have happened to us throughout history. The most important thing is that today, after eight decades, we are gathered here not to let these victims be forgotten. The members of the Brotherhood called on the representatives of the municipality, who must not allow not only this execution site, not only this cemetery, to be forgotten, but also to find the others in the Pljeval region, to hold funerals and memorial services. Today we held a funeral here, and we meant a memorial service, because at the last moment we found out that for the victims who were buried in this cemetery, even the enemy did not give them a few days to perform the funeral. You can imagine how much hatred and anger there was towards this people, who were not armed or participated in military events... We must see these victims of ours as martyrs who laid down their lives innocently, and we hope that the Lord God crowned their immortal souls with a crown martyrdom," Janjić pointed out.