More than half of the 250 members of the Serbian parliament voted this week in favor of establishing a memorial center in honor of those killed at the Staro Sajmište concentration in Serbia. Around 10,000 Serbs, 7,000 Jews and 60 Roma are known to have perished in Staro Sajmiste between 1941 and 1942.
It has long been considered that a Holocaust memorial would be established at Staro Sajmište, but there have been a lack of actions leading to the establishment of the monument. A monument was erected near the concentration camp in 1995.
Rather than the site being preserved following the conclusion of World War II and the Holocaust, parts of the camp has been used for mundane purposes, including as office space.
In 2016, the Serbian parliament passed a law offering compensation to Holocaust victims and their relatives for property illegally seized during the Holocaust. The legislation allocated an annual $1 million payments for the next 25 years, in one of the most just and wide-reaching moves among European states.
