Archibald Reiss-hero of justice, truth, human rights

BELGRADE - A great friend of the Serbian people, world-renowned criminologist and forensic scientist, university professor Archibald Reiss died in Belgrade 85 years ago, on August 8, 1929.

Reiss was born into a family of Jewish origin in Hausach, in the Grand Dutchy of Baden in Germany on July 8, 1875. He lived in the Canton of Vaud in Switzerland. He received a PhD in chemistry at the age of 22 and in no time acquired an international reputation in scientific circles. He was a professor of forensic science at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland.

Reiss arrived in Serbia in 1914 at the invitation of the Serbian government to investigate the crimes that the Austro-Hungarian, German and Bulgarian armed forces committed against civilians in the areas of Macva and Drina River basin.

Reiss ascertained that mass, organized, systematic crimes were committed against civilians, and wrote in several world languages that genocide was carried out in Serbia.

Employing forensic methods, he ascertained that the Austro-Hungarian army used expanding bullets, prohibited under the Hague Convention, and made postcards from photographs of victims. He noted that, besides mass hangings, there were 20 various ways of torturing and killing civilians.

As a renowned professor and criminologist, he spread the truth, and thus shattered the propaganda image that the Germans and Austro-Hungarians created about the Serbs as a "barbaric people."

There is no neutrality when faced with a crime. I will continue publishing the truth, because that is my duty, Reiss kept saying and went on with his work.

Reiss published numerous articles in European newspapers and magazines, often even on the front page, which he sent as a...