The exhibition “Allied Bombing – 80 Years Later” was opened in the Gallery of the National Museum Kraljevo, on Thursday, October 17th, 2024, starting at 7 p.m. The authors of the exhibition are Silvija Krejaković, museum advisor of the Belgrade City Museum and Aleksandar Berežnov, senior archivist of the Historical Archive Kraljevo. At the beginning of the opening ceremony, Darko Gučanin, director of the National Museum Kraljevo, greeted the audience and guests and gave the floor to Jamina Dražović, acting director of the Historical Archive Kraljevo, who spoke in front of her institution, as a co-organizer of the exhibition.
After that, Silvija Krejaković, one of the authors, addressed the audience and pointed out that this is the first presentation of Allied bombing, separated from the general context of the Second World War. She referred to the extent of the suffering evidenced by documents, photographs, as well as authentic sources – lists of the Serbian Orthodox Church, lists of the Catholic County in Kraljevo, German military reports, as well as reports and aerial photographs of veterans of bombing missions preserved on the Internet. So far, the names of 72 victims have been determined. This important topic for the Kraljevo area, which for decades was on the margins of interest for the final struggle for liberation from the occupiers, received special attention only after the bombing of Yugoslavia by NATO in 1999. Along with a series of journalistic works with arbitrary analogies, the works of historians were also created, based on written research and the recording of the narratives of then rare living witnesses. Along with a series of journalistic works with arbitrary analogies, the works of historians were also created, based on written research and the recording of the narratives of then rare living witnesses.
Aleksandar Berežnov, as the second author of the exhibition, spoke about the course of events: the dates of the bombing, the victims, the locations of the occupiers. Human losses and material destruction, as a result of the failures and miscalculations of the Allied air attacks, were mostly in the parts of the cities that gravitated towards the targets of the attack: parts of the Railway Colony and the Airport Colony, the city hospital, the Gymnasium building, the facilities of the Railway Workshop and Barracks, Home Catholic churches, part of the city cemetery and Farmer’s estate. The greatest suffering occurred during the night between August 10th and 11th, 1944, because the citizens did not expect a night attack, and the city center around today’s Heroja Maričića, Obilićeva and Vojvoda Putnika streets suffered in particular. The errors were conditioned by the height of 5000 m from which the planes operated. The positive effects of the bombing are that Kraljevo was liberated two months later, and the negative effects are numerous civilian casualties and large-scale destruction.
The exhibition was opened by Miloš Timotijević, PhD, museum advisor of the National Museum in Čačak, who at the beginning pointed out that the basic question is: why did this happen. The Second World War resulted in the greatest human losses ever, primarily due to the development of military aviation, which acted brutally on the civilian population, regardless of which of the warring parties it belonged to. There were two approaches: the first with the intention of killing as many people as possible, according to the position of the specific country being attacked, and the second was the selective bombing of enemy targets with civilian casualties, as a kind of necessary consequence due to inaccuracy. Serbia was treated by the allies in this second way, as an anti-fascist country, and all decisions about bombing were made by the United States. A total of 18 settlements in Serbia were bombed, killing around 5,000 people. An exhibition like this one, where the names and identities of the victims have been investigated, shows as the most important message that every human life is precious and that such sufferings must be remembered and kept from being forgotten.