“Vladislav Ribnikar” elementary school published a special section “IN MEMORIAM” on its website, dedicated to students and a security guard, who were killed on May 3 last year.
To meet the first anniversary of the most tragic event in our modern history, the “Vladislav Ribnikar” school published a suitable text, which we are transcribing in its entirety.
When they first came to Ribnikar, as freshmen, they were curious and proud to start school. Then we promised them that we would teach them and teach them. We promised to send them out of Ribnikar as teenagers, safe, free and ready for what awaits them in the rest of their lives. We promised to keep them safe. And we taught them. And we kept them. We didn’t save them. Please forgive us for not being able to fulfill our promise.
Our children, in alphabetical order of their surnames, Mara, Bojana, Angelina, Ana, Adriana, Emma, Katarina, Sofija and Andrija. Our Dragan. We lost them. Our students! Different interests, great success for their too short lives in numerous fields – in music, sports, dance, ballet, school results! Of a unique description – wonderful young people, good friends even to their executioner, innocent victims whose departure lost their families, our school and Serbia! And our Guardian, our Dragan! Not a security guard, but the keeper of our smiles, secrets, jokes, trusts – a wonderful man and friend of every child, all employees, all parents and everyone who has ever set foot in our school. We lost them in a bloody fairy tale that never happened anywhere, in an inexplicable feast of a darkened mind that lasted less than a short school vacation.
And that morning, Dragan came in a good mood, because he spent the May Day holiday working in his garden. He smiled at every child and teacher at the entrance. Our two girls, Bojana and Ana, came to school dressed up for taking pictures for the school almanac and proud because for the first time they are students on duty at the main entrance. Mara, Angelina, Adriana, Emma, Katarina, Sofija and Andrija arrived for the first lesson eager to see their friends after a short vacation, as well as Helena, Vladimir, Andrija, Jovan and Veljko. History teacher Tanja Stevanović with a prepared lecture on the Balkan Wars and a few more instructions for our Popket, who was supposed to go to the National History Competition with her on Sunday. Shots break the silence of the first lesson, the first duty, the history lesson and write a new, tragic history of our school, our country, our world. Nothing is the same anymore and never will be.
And how now? How without them? What about us wounded? What about the children who experienced horror that no human being should experience!? We do not know. They didn’t teach us. None of us are trained for this. The only thing we know is that we have to. Because of our children. For the sake of our Ribnikars and everyone else. No matter how sad and angry we are, we must find kindness and love in our hearts because of them. Because love and kindness must be their monument. Hate killed them, and love and only love can save them, save us! ours, Mara Anđelković, Bojana Asović, Angelina Aćimović, Ana Božović, Adriana Dukić, Ema Kobiljski, Katarina Martinović, Sofija Negić, Andrija Čikić and Dragan Vlahović they are a permanent feature of our school because of what they were and what they would have become if they had not been stopped too early in their rise. Eternal glory to them!
