The execution in Kragujevac on 21 October 1941 is one of the greatest atrocities of the German Army in the WWII. In the reprisal action, in a single day and within seven hours only, the Nazis killed several thousands of men, women and children. The reason for executions were the German losses of 16 October 1941, when in the clashes with Partisans and Chetniks in the vicinity of Kragujevac 10 German soldiers were killed and 26 wounded. The reprisals started on 19 October in the villages of Maršić, Mečkovac (Ilićevo) and Grošnica, where a hundred hostages were shot for every killed German soldier, and fifty for every wounded. The villages, as the Nazis used to say, were broods of bandits. According to the information gathered so far, 415 people were killed that day, while 21 managed to survive. Already on 20 October, several thousands of citizens of Kragujevac were arrested and imprisoned in the cannon sheds in the suburbs of the city; among them also a several hundreds of students of the Kragujevac secondary schools. In the evening, around 6 p.m, a special group of 123 people was brought out for killing – inmates from the Kragujevac prison, communists, nationalists and Jews. It was just an introduction into the tragedy which would start on 21 October at 7 a.m. Torrents of people were flowing from the cannon sheds, led by the Germans for killing. Everything was over by 2 p.m. In the valleys of Erdoglijski and Sušica streams several hundred people lay dead, among them three hundred young men and students of secondary schools and 23 teenagers between 12 and 15, mainly Roma shoe cleaners from Kragujevac.
Through decades of research, the information on 2,264 executed persons and 31 survivors were collected at the Museum of 21 October. Major Paul Kenig, in charge of the executions, surpassed in cruelty even the monstrous order of the General Franz Böhme – A hundred for one, in accordance with which 2,300 people should have been killed as a retribution for German losses. Within three days, 2,854 persons were led before the firing squad. By a twist of fate, 62 persons survived. After the war, the execution grounds were made into a memorial compound dedicated to the victims of this atrocity, and the museum constructed at the compound entrance in 1976. The Monument to Killed Students and Teachers has become a symbol of the tragedy and the City of Kragujevac itself.
Motif on the stamp: Monument of Pain and Defiance, by Ante Gržetić, 1959. Motif on the vignette and envelope: The Monument to Killed Students and Teachers, by Miodrag Živković, 1963. In the background of the stamp and envelope is shown the text of Proclamation by which the German local Kommandatur of Kragujevac announced the shooting of citizens of Kragujevac in October 1941.
