Necropolis for the Victims of Fascism (Novi Travnik)
The necropolis for the victims of fascism ( Bosnian Nekropola žrtvama fašizma ) on the Čamića Brdo mountain near Novi Travnik is a mass grave and memorial, which commemorates a massacre of the Ustasha at this place, in which around 700 civilians were murdered. It was built from 1972 to 1975 according to plans by the Yugoslav architect and sculptor Bogdan Bogdanović . It consists of twelve identical monolithic blocks, each about three to four meters high. There is also a stone with an inscription on the way to the monument. The remains of the dead are buried in an underground crypt.
The Travnik community planned to build a memorial from September 1972. The then mayor, Abdulah Maglić , personally selected Bogdanović for the design. He began work on the memorial in October 1972. The memorial was officially opened on February 19, 1975, the anniversary of the liberation of Novi Travnik by the partisans .
The facility was badly damaged during the Bosnian War , one of the monoliths was completely destroyed. Since then, the landscaped area around the monument has been completely converted to farmland, so that the monoliths now stand on a narrow strip between fields.
In 2012 the monument was declared a National Monument .
inscription
On a stone on the way to the memorial there is an inscription that recalls what happened. The inscription reads:
"На Смрицама између / Буковице и Виленице / [...] злочинци / године 1941 / звјерски су / побили око 700 / недужних и беспомоћних / грађана с подручја / средње Босне"
"On Smrike between / Bukovica and Vilenica / [...] criminals / in 1941 / atrocious / killed around 400 / innocent and defenseless / civilians of the region / from central Bosnia"
A word has been removed by vandalism (either in the Yugoslav Wars or more recently). It probably named the perpetrators more precisely, so it could have been “Ustasha” or “Fascists”. Smrike was the name of the region during the Second World War .
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Coordinates: 44 ° 11 ′ 47 " N , 17 ° 41 ′ 27.8" E