Author’s Guidance Through the Exhibition “Allied Bombing – 80 Years Later”

Author’s guidance through the exhibition “Allied Bombing – 80 Years After” will be organized on Tuesday, November 26th, 2024, at 6 p.m. and on Thursday, November 28th, 2024, at 6 p.m. The audience will be guided through the exhibition by Aleksandar Berežnov, senior archivist of the Historical Archives Kraljevo.

Perhaps unjustly neglected, and marked by great suffering of citizens, a special period in the history of the city is the time during the Allied bombing of Kraljevo and the surrounding area in the period July-September 1944. Hundreds of tons of bombs of great destructive power fell on the city and its surroundings on several occasions during that time, causing great material damage and causing dozens of civilian casualties.

At the exhibition, the public has the opportunity to see documents and data from the available funds and collections of the National Museum Kraljevo and the Historical Archives Kraljevo, as well as other institutions. The suffering of citizens and the great material damage are evidenced by a small number of photographs, the Patient Book of the Kraljevo Hospital, reports of war damage submitted to the district commission, reports of the Railway Workshop, statements in court probate proceedings, lists of those executed, protocols of the deceased of the Serbian Orthodox Church, as well as other documents of all warring parties, including documents of participants in Allied air missions…

The most impressive part of the exhibition is made up of the preserved statements of those who survived the bombings. Their emotional memories most vividly describe the horrors they experienced, the losses of family members, neighbors, fellow citizens… After the bombing, many citizens were left without their homes, and there were many injured people.

Numerous questions arise, such as: can the “collateral damage” in the form of dozens of civilian victims be justified by the liberation of the Kraljevo region two months after the last bombing, could the bombs have been dropped more precisely, were the targets chosen incorrectly…
Kraljevo is a city that does not have a memorial dedicated to the victims of the Allied bombings, of whom more than 70 have been identified. Apart from five uniformed individuals, all the other victims were civilians, and entire families also died. The city was devastated upon liberation.