Exhibition 'First Day of Great War' opens in Belgrade

BELGRADE - The Museum of Genocide Victims in Belgrade prepared an exhibition titled “First Day of Great War” as part of the marking of 100 years since the beginning of World War I.

Culture Secretary of the City of Belgrade Vladan Vukosavljevic declared the exhibition open at the Cvijeta Zuzoric pavilion on Wednesday. The exhibition comprises 15 posters, each of them covering a separate thematic and documentary unit.

Through interesting photographs, the exhibition depicts the atmosphere in part of the western press, presents telegrams, the ship which fired first shots at Belgrade, and the consequences of the savage attacks on Serbia, that marked the beginning of the Great War, Vukosavljevic said.

The aim of this and other exhibitions that were staged on this occasion is to draw attention to the huge suffering of the Serbian people, he added, noting that according to the statistical data “which are so often neglected”, in terms of percentage, Serbia had the highest death toll in World War I.

According to the official data, World War I claimed the lives of around 28 percent of the total population, that is the figure that exceeds by far, in percentage terms, the number of victims of all other countries that took part in the war, the culture secretary said.

Vukosavljevic noted that the remains of our heroes from that period now rest in 18 countries in 1,800 graveyards.

Acting Director of the Museum of Genocide Victims Veljko Djuric Misina said that this exhibition is a small contribution to the marking of the WWI centenary, with which the museum wants to point to what Europe thought at that time, but also what the American press reported.

“We want to warn and draw attention to, get...