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 ROOM
501
Daily “Press” from Vienna wrote this summer about at the
very least bizarre advertisement in the fancy magazine
of the Serbian airliner “Jat”. The add was paid by the
hotel “President” in Belgrade in an attempt to attract
guests into the rooms with portrays of Silvio
Berlusconi, Ronald Reagan, Josip Broz Tito, Vladimir
Putin, but also Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler (room
501).
The enraged Israeli ambassador to Serbia demanded the
removal of the portray of the man with a swastika. The
management promised to do so, but as the ambassador did
not attend one of the related press conferences, the
hotel withdrew the promise. And more was to come.
The owner of the hotel (one of the champions of the
October 5, the owner of a well-known company, importer
of luxurious cigarettes...) said that 'the painting will
be on the wall temporarily, until the expiration of the
existing reservations', maintaining that 'the issue is
not so relevant for the ambassador', for, after all, '
we gain of it economically - the room 501 is on the top
of the demands'.
Already in December last year “Blic” made reportage on
the issue, noting that the painting of Hitler was not
located only in the apartment 501, but also behind the
bar in the café, from which it was consequently removed.
The legal lesson was to follow: 'There is no regulation
to sanction such behaviour in Serbia, but the
glorification of the personalities of Nazi leaders and
their symbols is strictly prohibited in European Union’,
writes “Blic”.
Prior to his visit to the War Crimes Prosecutor's
Office, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in
Jerusalem Efraim Zuroff, demanded from the Serbian
authorities to intervene in this hotel scandal, as he
claimed that ‘this hotel’s decoration is among the worst
examples of anti-Semitism.' It is intolerable in his
view, to exhibit the portray of a person responsible for
the deaths of millions of people, and he said he would
have never thought that such thing happened 'exactly in
Belgrade'.
'Exactly in Belgrade' were the Jews, alongside with the
Serbs and Roma, imprisoned and murdered in the camps of
Banjica, Staro Sajmiste and Autokomanda. Exactly in Novi
Sad they were thrown into frozen Danube, dead or alive.
Exactly Belgrade was a hiding place of Radovan Karadzic.
Exactly in Belgrade was large neo-Nazi parade prepared,
but not allowed. Exactly Belgrade demands the
extradition of Peter Egner, Sandor Kepiro and Milivoj
Asner. Exactly from Belgrade are Ratko Mladic and Goran
Hadzic demanded.
Such symbols are not taking us to Europe. Sanctions and
condemnations are very tangible in this case.
Jasna Šarčević - Janković
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