Velika – a Truth Too Sacred to Be Twisted

Written by: Tanja Šuković

I have 27,648 reasons to write about the horrific crime in Velika

Why that number, exactly? I’ll explain at the end.

I feel both a personal and moral duty to write about what happened on July 28, 1944. As a descendant of those who endured the Velika tragedy, I owe this to the victims, to my ancestors, to my late parents, and to the values they lived by.

It is precisely because of those values that I must speak out – to protest the manipulation, the political maneuvering, and the exploitation of the victims’ suffering.

Yesterday, we heard local officials declare that what happened in Velika was a “planned and systematic killing of people simply because of their faith and ethnicity.” We also listened to the President of Parliament state: “Today, we honor the memory of the Holy New Martyrs of Velika and Upper Polimlje. July 28 should be a day when we are united in soul and in heart”.

Really? I ask you, gentlemen – how? What exactly are you doing to make that unity more than just words?

You are killing the innocent all over again, because your only goal is to redefine their national identity. You absolve the Chetniks and the Nazis and blame this atrocity on “centuries-old religious and ethnic animosities.” You attend memorial services led by priests from a Church that glorifies the very criminals – ideological kin to those who slaughtered civilians in Velika. You canonize brutally murdered elders, women, and children – only to equate them with their murderers?

We all know why the Church has assumed the role of “chief institution” responsible for commemorating the Velika massacre. Joanikije made that perfectly clear during the 70th anniversary of the atrocity:

“In certain lists of Velika and Polimlje victims of fascist, Ballist, and Vulnetar terror, their national identity is listed as Montenegrin. This is unacceptable, because the Montenegrin nationality was officially established by the communist government only after the war. Until then, all Orthodox people in Montenegro – including those in the Lim Valley – were officially registered as Serbs, and no one objected. To retroactively redefine the identity of those born and killed as Orthodox Serbs is a crude violation of their identity and, in this case, yet another injustice toward innocent victims”.

Let me give you just one example from yesterday’s liturgy, led by Metodije, Metropolitan of Budimlja and Nikšić, and Bishop Jovan of Pakrac and Slavonia. After the memorial service for Velika’s victims, they also held a prayer for the soldiers who died in the Battle of Košare – “108 Serbian heroes”, according to the official website of the Budimlja-Nikšić diocese. And Metodije concluded with these words:

“The entire Serbian nation forms a single circle – stretching from Dalmatia and Slavonia, through Serbia, Vojvodina, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Herzegovina. These are our lands, where we have lived for centuries, prayed to God, suffered, been born, and died – for the holy Cross and our golden freedom”.

Is this what you mean by unity of soul and heart?

Well, let me say this clearly: don’t count on me.

And while you're busy rehabilitating the Chetnik movement, what will you do with the members of the “Prinz Eugen” Division? If you follow Serbia’s example – as I suspect you will – you’ll need to find money to compensate them too. I’m sure you already know this: Serbia has officially rehabilitated 300 members of that infamous SS division – the same division whose troops and collaborators committed atrocities in Velika.

So please, spare us the stories of the “good-hearted but misunderstood” Chetniks and other quisling filth.

My people died in the war – but they also won in 1945. They won because they defended their land, their homes, their hearths. They won because they knew they were fighting against evil and its local enablers. Against the very people you are now trying – shamelessly – to portray as righteous men.

And since, every July 28, we now witness you and the Church twisting and distorting the truth about Velika, let me repeat, once again, the facts that must never be forgotten.

Before the war, Velika was home to around 1,350 people, in 320 households. Most belonged to the families Petrović, Živaljević, Knežević, Tomović, Jokić, Gojković, Vučetić, Simonović, Ognjanović, Paunović, Bjelanović, Janković, Radević, Mikić, Bošković, and Brković. There were no Chetnik or fascist groups in the village. On the contrary – Velika had 270 fighters in the Partisan resistance.

During World War II, Velika became a Partisan stronghold in northeastern Montenegro. That is why, on July 28, 1944, troops from the SS “Prinz Eugen” Division, the SS “Skanderbeg” Mountain Division, Muslim fascist militias, the Albanian quisling army, and local Chetnik collaborators from Montenegro and Sandžak, launched a specially planned operation. In just two hours, they slaughtered nearly 500 innocent civilians. Entire families were exterminated for supporting the Partisans. Children, women, and the elderly were tortured and murdered in the most horrific ways imaginable.

The Nazis kept meticulous records – of their crimes and of their collaborators.

Velika had a school. It had teachers. It even had priests. But it didn’t have a church – not until 1916. During the occupation, a makeshift chapel was cobbled together to mark the start of the school year.

Here’s a telling excerpt from a written testimony:

“The people of Velika held teachers in high regard as the most educated among them. By contrast, they saw the priest as a necessary evil: his beard, his chanting no one could understand, and his habit of recording births, marriages, and deaths – none of that seemed useful, yet everyone had to pay him. If they didn’t like him as a person, they gave him a nickname that said it all. The most common nicknames were things like ‘Father Misery’ or ‘Father Trouble.’ The war thinned out their ranks too”.

To anyone honest and sincere, this should be enough.

And finally – my mother survived the Velika massacre. But five other members of her family did not.

I mentioned the number 27,648.

That’s how many days and nights passed from that fateful July 28, 1944, until the day my mother closed her eyes for the last time – haunted, every single day, by the memories of what she saw as a six-year-old girl.

Now you know why I must write about this.