The Partisan Memorial Cemetery on Krušik in Valjevo, Serbia, is a memorial cemetery in the northwestern part of the city, on Krušik Hill, where 313 fighters and participants of the Partisan National Liberation Movement who were born, fought, or fell in the Valjevo area during World War II in Yugoslavia are buried.
Most of those interred, 261 of them, were participants in the Partisan resistance (the National Liberation War) who were shot by the Germans on 27 November 1941 after being captured and handed over by Ravna Gora Chetniks. They were later joined by others who fell in the Valjevo municipality during the war until the city's liberation in 1944.
Although the large execution site began to be transformed into an organized cemetery during and immediately after the war, the first planned conversion into a memorial park was carried out on the fifteenth anniversary of the shooting in 1956. The cemetery received its present form through a major reconstruction in 1964. Prior to the visit of President Josip Broz Tito to Valjevo in 1967, a central area with an eternal flame was built, which Tito solemnly lit during his visit to the cemetery.
During socialist Yugoslavia, this cemetery held a very important symbolic place on the political map of the city. Political functionaries gathered here for all major state and local holidays to give speeches, pioneers took oaths, and members of the Yugoslav People's Army swore their oaths of allegiance.
Every 27 November, a solemn commemoration for the executed patriots is held at the cemetery on Krušik. The Partisan Memorial Cemetery on Krušik is a cultural monument of great importance.
History
Execution of Partisans on Krušik and origins of the cemetery
The memorial cemetery is located in the northwestern part of Valjevo, on Krušik Hill. It was at this very spot that the Germans shot 261 captured members and supporters of the Partisan resistance movement on 27 November 1941.
The executed were originally captured by Ravna Gora Chetniks during the Partisan–Chetnik conflict that was flaring up in western Serbia. The handover of the captured Partisans to the Germans was carried out by Jovan Škavo, who was already under the command of Vojvoda Kosta Pećanac, without the knowledge of Colonel Draža Mihailović. After the handover, the prisoners were transferred to Valjevo, where they were beaten, mistreated, and sent to forced labor building a German airfield just outside the city. From this group of prisoners, on the aforementioned 27 November, the Germans shot 261 fighters on Krušik Hill, inside the barracks of the 5th Infantry Regiment "King Milan" that existed there at the time.
During the occupation, relatives and friends marked the site of death in the simplest ways. After the liberation of the country, individuals began to place gravestones, wooden pyramids, and other markers. A year later, the entire area was fenced, and brass plates on wooden bases were placed over the graves, inscribed with the names of the executed according to German lists that had been found in the meantime. In an effort to more permanently mark the execution site, preserve the memory of the crime, and also to emphasize the political function of monuments in post-war society—as "sources of the revolution"—the space was transformed through memorial-park design and landscaping.
The general social situation and the political climate in which Yugoslavia found itself decisively influenced the decision to build an ossuary. Specifically, following the 1948 Cominform Resolution—which triggered the Tito–Stalin split between Yugoslavia and the Soviet bloc—the Soviet side launched a propaganda campaign attempting to discredit the new Yugoslav leadership, among other things by downplaying the contribution of the Partisan forces in the fight against fascism. As art historian Violeta Obrenović points out, it was probably this rift with Moscow that influenced the decision of the Government of the People's Republic of Serbia to initiate the construction of a series of monuments dedicated to the National Liberation War throughout Serbia (Kragujevac, Čačak, Bela Crkva, Jajinci, etc.), including the one in Valjevo.
Construction The memorial park was opened on the fifteenth anniversary of the mass execution of patriots, in the presence of a large number of working people, citizens, relatives of the executed, and representatives of workers' and socio-political organizations. The complex consisted only of an ossuary and newly installed memorial plaques with the names of the fallen in an altered form, since, after subsequent verification, the names of persons who were found not to have been shot at this location were omitted. The project was made in the studio of the Belgrade "General Plan" by architect Vera Đurić.
Similar to most ossuaries in Serbia from the Second World War period, this one in Valjevo was modestly arranged and equipped. As it increasingly became an important symbolic place in the political space of Valjevo of that time and a gathering place for organizations associated with the official Partisan resistance narrative, the need for reconstruction and expansion soon arose. The architect of the new project for the memorial cemetery was Božidar Krković, an architectural engineer from Valjevo, who was also entrusted with all works related to the execution of construction and other works. The construction work was otherwise carried out free of charge by workers from Valjevo construction and utility companies, with costs consisting only of purchased building material.
Through this reconstruction and expansion, which took place only in 1964, the memorial cemetery obtained its appearance that has essentially not changed to this day. It was shaped as an irregular triangle covering an area of 2.5 hectares. It is enclosed by a hedge, and at the entrance a place for laying wreaths, flagpoles, and a plaque reading: "To the fighters of the revolution fallen on the soil of this region 1941–1944... Only the horizons of future days will be able to measure the meaning of their death... 7 July 1964." The interior consists of a grassy area intersected by paved pedestrian paths and numerous memorial plaques, with ornamental plants.
As part of the reconstruction and expansion, in addition to the existing memorial ossuaries, the remains of Partisan fighters and anti-fascist resistance supporters who fell during the war in the territory of the municipality of Valjevo were transferred and buried at the cemetery. Thus the number of mounds after the expansion totaled 64, in which 313 fighters of the National Liberation War were buried and recorded on plaques, including prominent fighters and national heroes from the Valjevo area who were killed elsewhere outside Valjevo and its surroundings.
The newly arranged and expanded memorial cemetery on Krušik was solemnly opened on Uprising Day of the People of Serbia – 7 July 1964. The opening ceremony was attended by about 15,000 citizens of Valjevo, surviving fighters of the National Liberation War from the area, and their relatives. The ceremonial speech was delivered by Vojin Lukić, then federal secretary for internal affairs.
Eternal flame
The definitive appearance of the memorial cemetery was achieved on 18 May 1967, the day of the visit of President of the Republic Josip Broz Tito to Valjevo, including the cemetery on Krušik. The changes consisted of rearranging and expanding the central area of the cemetery, transferring the remains of some additional fighters, and arranging several new mounds. Above each mound, memorial plaques with basic biographical data of the buried fighters were placed, although a considerable number of "unknown fighters" still remained. In the central part of the cemetery, for this occasion, a section with a torch and an eternal flame was added. The torch was made of metal, and the space around it was walled in the shape of a triangle, in the upper corner of which a sandstone block was placed with the following text cast in metal letters: The author of the entire design was academic sculptor Milica Bogunović from Belgrade.
On 18 May, after visiting the "Krušik" factory, the largest factory in Valjevo, where he gave a speech and talked with workers, Tito drove to the Partisan cemetery, where he was met and greeted at the entrance by the president of the Valjevo municipal committee of the Federation of Veterans' Associations of the National Liberation War of Yugoslavia (SUBNOR), Borivoje Jevtić, accompanied by Ilija Šolaja and Maksim Kovačević. The President then laid a wreath before the eternal flame in the central part of the cemetery, and after the Yugoslav national anthem was sung, he approached with a lit torch and lit the eternal fire. The choir of students from the Valjevo Gymnasium then sang the ceremonial song "Jugoslavijo" by Nikola Hercigonja. (figs. 2, 3 and 4)
After that, Tito walked through the memorial complex and greeted members of the families of fallen fighters. This concluded Tito's visit to the cemetery. On departure, the choir sent him off with the song "Druže Tito mi ti se kunemo", and he, through an unbroken line of citizens of Valjevo, headed to the Monument to the Fighters of the Revolution on Vidrak Hill, where he was greeted by National Hero Milosav Milosavljević and first fighters Živorad Žika Gajić and Radomir Raka Vićentijević, laid flowers before the monument, and spoke praisefully about it.
Later decades and present day In memory of the executed Partisans and resistance supporters, every 27 November, the day of their execution in 1941, commemorative ceremonies are held at the memorial cemetery. The first such ceremony took place on 27 November 1946, and according to the local newspaper "Napred", about 8,000 people participated (by comparison, Valjevo then had about 10,000 inhabitants) – all schools, citizens, children, etc.
The memorial cemetery on Krušik, like other ossuaries throughout socialist Yugoslavia, was originally a materialized testimony to the horrors of the war tragedy: a place for expressing sorrow over tragically lost lives and for cathartic encounters of survivors. However, over time, as historian Olga Manojlović Pintar points out, the practice of commemoration began to change. The fallen in the war, through numerous symbols and rituals, from subjects to whom ceremonies were dedicated, became objects on which ideological and political concepts were based—being instrumentalized as a central symbol of state unity and legitimation of the political order.
The commemorative ceremony at the memorial cemetery on Krušik was organized every year during socialist Yugoslavia by the Municipal Committee of SUBNOR, while its immediate executors and hosts were the Local Community "Krušik" on whose territory the memorial cemetery is located, and the elementary school "Andra Savčić" from Valjevo. The program for years usually consisted of laying wreaths and flowers, speeches by prominent participants of the National Liberation War or politicians from Valjevo, and a cultural-artistic program in which members of amateur cultural associations from the city, members of the Yugoslav People's Army, and students of Valjevo schools participated. The speeches in content usually consisted of evoking memories of the war period and the tragic event of the shooting, then referring to the post-war period, the socialist revolution, and the building of the country, and finally commenting on the current political and economic situation in the country.