Ever heard of song "Bloody fairytale"? If you are from Serbia, probably yes (most Serbs knows first verse of this song), otherwise - probably not. Its poem written by very famous Serbian author, Desanka Maksimovic, and its about very specific event that took place on this day, 80 years ago.

On October 21st 1941, in one city in Serbia (back then in Yugoslavia), Kragujevac, there was a mass murder and about 3000 men and boys (mostly Serbs) were killed by German solders. Reason for this was not long before, when Partizani and Cetnici took over anther occupied city, Gornji Milanovac. When they released city, they also took some German solders as hostages. German solders came to rescue them, and incident happened which caused 10 German solders to lose life, and 26 were injured. After that, Kragujevac massacre happen. So 3000 lives (of even young boys) for 10 solders. Their formula was 100 lives for one dead solider, and 50 for one injured,  formula devised by Adolf Hitler, with the intent of suppressing anti-Nazi resistance in Eastern Europe. Some shooting happened on 20th of October 1941. but biggest one was next day, when they took 2272 life, on cemetery, in Sumarice. Among them, there was 217 kids (under 18), from which there was 60 students of high school and 134 kids that didn't go to school, and 23 kids under 15.

"Shoot, I am still holding class now."

Among arrested that day, there was also a proffessor of Serbian language and literature Miloje Pavlovic. It is believed that Germans wanted to save his life, as a respectable citizen, and gave him chance to leave, but he refused with words "Shoot, I am still holing class now." and he died among his students. Instead of choosing life, knowing his students died, he choosed death, and with those words, he made history and become immortal. Even before this, Miloje Pavlovic was very honorable and respectable man, with many achievements, and all this lead to him posthumously become a national hero, in 1953.

October in Kragujevac - Memorial park

The same year (1953.), in Sumarice (where shooting took place) memorial park October in Kragujevac (also known as Sumarice Memorial Park) was build complex on 353 hectares. It includes 7km long path that goes through valleys where people were killed. It also includes Museum "21st October" that was build later, in 1976. There are few monuments in this park, but most known is one that is "Broken Wings" from author Miodrag Zivkovic, and it was in honor of students and professors that died that day. I'm sharing photo of it:

Image: Mickey Mistique, CC BY-SA 4.0 via https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%C5%A0umarice_Memorial_Park,_Monument_to_fifth-graders,_01.jpg

In complex, there is also monument that says "Shoot, I am still holding class now." dedicated to the professor Miloje Pavlovic, and few other monuments.

Poem by Desanka Maksimovic

After she heard of massacre in Kragujevac, Desanka Maksimovic wrote poem called "Bloody Fairy Tale". Its called that way, because it was unbelievable that this event happen in 20th century in Europe (unfortunately, many other even worse happen, and still are), she didn't mentioned in which country this happen because, after all that doesn't even matter. What mattered where lives of innocent people that were taken, cold-blooded. I'm sharing original poem with you, as well as the translation into English.

(Serbian version)

You can find it following this link: http://www.laban.rs/lib/Desanka_Maksimovich/Krvava_bajka.html

(English version)

"It happened in a land of farmers
on Hilly Balkan, far, far away;
A troop of students died martyred
on one single day.

They were all born in the same year.
For all of them, the school days were the same:
They were all taken to the same festivals with cheer,
they were all vaccinated
until the last name,
and they all died on the same day.

It happened in a land of farmers
on Hilly Balkan, far, far away;
A troop of students died martyred
on one single day.

And only fifty-five minutes
prior the death moment,
a small troop of fidgets
sat beside their school desks
solving the same hard math quest:
“If a traveler goes by foot,
how much time he needs to rest...”
And so on.

Their thoughts were filled
with same figures and tags
and there was a countless amount
of senseless As and Fs
in their notebooks and in their bags.
They were squeezing
a whole bunch of secrets that mattered -
either patriotic or a love letter -
on the bottom of their pockets.
And everyone of them supposed
that he would for a long time,
for a very, very long time
run under the blue sky --
until all math quests on the world were
done and gone by.

It happened in a land of farmers
on Hilly Balkan, far, far away;
A troop of students died martyred
on one single day.

Whole rows of boys took each other’s hands
and leaving the last school class
went to the execution quietly,
as the death was nothing but a smile.

All friends in rows were, at the same moment,
lifted up to the eternal domicile."

I didn't do translate, it was taken from https://www.poetryverse.com/desanka-maksimovic-poems/bloody-fairy-tale .

It's really sad how these things happen, and unfortunately still happens even in 21st century. There is no winners in war, there is no sides in war. Just innocent people that die because of bad politics. Any type of war today for any 'reason' is unacceptable and its devastating that wars still happen.

(Disclaimer 1: Numbers are not 100% correct, there are many sources, but all around those figures)

(Disclaimer 2: When I first posted article I wanted to Serbian and English version to go one beside another but it didn't worked)