Belgrade to name street after Ante Pavelic's assassin, Blagoje Jovovic

Foto: Promo

A street in Belgrade will be named after Blagoje Jovovic, the Commission for Monuments and Names of Squares and Streets has decided, in this way adopting an initiative by Deputy Mayor Goran Vesic, which he submitted as a citizen.

The explanation of the initiative states that on April 10, 1957, Jovovic carried out an assassination of the notorious leader of the Ustasha-ruled Independent State of Croatia (NDH), Ante Pavelic. The assassination coincided with the day the Ustashas who escaped to Argentina after WW2 celebrated the founding of their Nazi state, the so-called Independent State of Croatia.

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"As a hero of the Serbian people, Blagoje Jovovic carried out an assassination of the greatest criminal affecting Serbian history, Ustasha leader Ante Pavelic. Hundreds of thousands of Serbs were killed in the most monstrous ways by Pavelic's Ustashas in the NDH. This criminal also established a camp for Serb children in Jasenovac, as well as camps not only for Serbs, but also for Romanis, Jews, Muslims, and anti-fascists," Vesic explained.

He said he hoped the proposal would be met with the public's approval and that there won't be "some Serbian historians who will be convincing us that Jovovic, who carried out the assassination one of the greatest war criminals that history has known, is not a hero."

He passed away in 1999, after his first and only visit to Yugoslavia

"Blagoje Jovovic passed away on June 2, 1999. 20 years later, from a historical and time distance, I believe it is time for Belgrade and Serbia to pay back their debt to Jovovic and name a street in Belgrade after him," Vesic said.

The commission proposed that Zagorska Street in Zemun be renamed to Blagoja Jovovica Street, and also adopted an initiative of the Society for the Beautification of Vracar (municipality) to install a memorial plaque dedicated to Serbian actor Vlastimir "Djuza" Stojiljkovic, on the facade of the building in which he lived in Novopazarska Street.

Djuza Stojiljkovic; Facebook/Bez stepenika/Без степеника/No stair

Stojiljkovic was born in 1929 in Razanj. He began his professional career in 1951 at the Belgrade Drama Theater.

He appeared in numerous plays and gained great popularity with the movie "Love and Fashion" ("Ljubav i moda") and for his role as Rodoljub Petrovic in TV series "Theater at Home" ("Pozoriste u kuci").

(Telegraf.rs)