81 years ago, more than two thousand people were killed in Kragujevac and its surroundings.

Although at first it was said that more than seven thousand were killed, and then about five thousand victims, according to the data of the October 21 Museum, 2,264 people were shot. 31 people survived the shooting.

Nobody knows the exact number of dead. Those numbers increase and decrease even today, and individuals perceive them only as a statistical number, says Marija Planić from Kragujevac.

What is known for sure is that on October 21st there was a burst of fire that was not allowed to be talked about in Kragujevac.


Among those executed were about 300 young men and high school students, aged between 12 and 15 years.


Krvava Bajka


It was in a country of peasants
in the hilly Balkans,
she died a martyrs death
a company of students
in one day.
They are the same age
were all born
their school days were the same,
at the same ceremony
are led together,
from the same diseases all pelted,
and all died on the same day.
It was in a country of peasants
in the hilly Balkans,
she died a martyrs death
a company of students
in one day.
And fifty-five minutes
before the moment of death
she was sitting in the student desk
the company is small
And the same difficult tasks
solved: as much as possible
a traveler if he goes on foot...
and so on.
Their thoughts were full
the same numbers,
and by the notebooks in the school bag
senseless lay countless
fives and twos.
A handful of the same dreams
and the same secrets
patriotic and loving
they were clutching at the bottom of their pockets.
And it seemed to everyone
that it will be long
that for a very long time,
run under the blue sky
while all the tasks in the world
it doesnt improve.
It was in a country of peasants
in the hilly Balkans
she died a heroic death
a company of students
in the same day.
Rows of boys
they took each others hands
and from the last cl of school
they went calmly to the shooting
as if death were nothing.
Comrades ranks are whole
they rose at the same time
to the eternal abode.