3/24/2010
Letter to the Editors,
I believe your editorial board was in error by headlining Jack Kelly’s March 23rd article titled Obituary: Art Jibilian / Part of WWII team that rescued airmen in Nazi Yugoslavia. I hope this wasn’t intentional as Serbia, part of former Yugoslavia, was a hotbed of resistance to the Nazi occupied forces in Europe during WWII. While the article was correct in stating ‘Nazi Occupied Yugoslavia’ many readers have the habit of getting their news by skimming the headlines.
As a matter of fact Hitler was so enraged by the acts of resistance by the Serbians that he ordered the rebellion suppressed "by the most rigorous methods". The massacre that was carried out at in the Serbian town of the Kragujevac, even sickened the most ardent German soldiers themselves. Germans ordered 100 Serb civilians killed for every one German soldier killed and 50 Serb civilians killed for every German soldier killed resulting in 5,000 civilian deaths.
While other parts of Yugoslavia were indeed puppet states of the Nazi regime, Serbia was not! You owe it to the thousands of Americans of Serbian heritage in the Pittsburgh area to please note a correction.
Thank you,
Very well said Madeline.
The only correction I would make is that it was 50 Serb civilians for every German soldier “wounded”.
The Nazi reprisal policy that Hitler instituted in Serbia was truly mind-blowing.
He never would have had to institute such a policy if there had been no resistance in Yugoslavia.
Note: He didn’t have to institute such a reprisal policy for the Croatian civilians or for the Bosnian muslims. Just the Serbs.
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