Staro Sajmište

Staro Sajmište (Serbian Cyrillic: Старо Сајмиште) is an urban neighborhood of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is located in Belgrade's municipality of Novi Beograd and it was the site of the World War II Sajmište concentration camp (1941-1944).

Location

Staro Sajmište is located in the Novi Beograd's Block 17, between the street of "Zemunski put" (extension of the "Savski most" bridge), the "Mihajlo Pupin" boulevard (extension of the Branko's bridge) and the Sava river. It extends into the non-residential neighborhood of Ušće on the north, along the Sava quay into the new Park Republika Srpska on the east and into the newly deceloped Savograd on the west. "Sajmište" street curves within the settlement. South of the "Zemunski put", a "Sajmište" parking lot is located where the unappropriately parked cars are being tolled to.

History

Before 1941

In the period between the World Wars, settlements began to form on the left bank of the Sava river, closer to Belgrade, as the only existing settlement on the marshy territory of today's Novi Beograd at that time was the village of Bežanija, quite far away from Belgrade. Settlements were known as the Novo Naselje ("new settlement") and Sajmište ("fair ground"). Settlements developed without any urbanistic plans.

A complex of buildings was built in Sajmište in 1938. It was the site of the new Belgrade fair (hence the name), spreading over an area of 15,000 m² with modern and artistic buildings and constructions, including high metal spike construction. It hosted international fairs, with task of promoting the economy of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia as well. In September 1938 one of the exhibitions on the fair was the first presentation of television in this part of Europe (it will be 18 years before first television station in communist Yugoslavia will appear).

War years

After the April war of 1941 when Germany and its allies occupied and partitioned the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, entire Syrmia region (including the left bank of the Sava) became part of the Independent State of Croatia where they set the Ustaše regime. Nazi secret police, Gestapo, took over Sajmište. They encircled it with several rings of barbed wire turning it into what they referred to as "collection center" - a euphemism for a prison. It eventually became an extermination camp. Until May 1942 Germans used Sajmište concentration camp to mostly kill off Jews from Belgrade and other parts of Serbia. From April 1942 onwards, Serbian prisoners were transported in from Jasenovac and Stara Gradiška concentration camps run by ISC Croatian Ustaše. Partisans captured throughout Serbia were also sent to Sajmište. Detainees were also sent in from other parts of Yugoslavia, especially Serbs after major German offensives on briefly liberated territories. Executions of captured prisoners lasted as long as the camp existed.

Among others, prisoners included Serbian women, children and the elderly from Kozara region, entire Jewish families from Belgrade and other cities, Roma families, as well as entire Serbian populations of different Syrmian villages. November 1946 report released by Yugoslav State Commission for Crimes of Occupiers and their Collaborators claims that close to 100,000 prisoners came through Sajmište's gates. It is estimated that around 48,000 people perished inside the camp.

From 1945

After the war, settlement was totally neglected for years. It was left without maintenance and gradually started falling apart. Former fair buildings were awarded to some prominent artists (painters and sculptors) as their ateliers. Finally on July 9, 1987, Belgrade City Assembly decided to make Staro Sajmište a cultural site, thereby protecting it from real-estate expansion development. On April 21, 1995, a monument in remembrance of Sajmište victims was unveiled along Sava, one day ahead of the 50-year anniversary of Hitler admitting defeat on April 22, 1945.

However, almost nothing was done to conserve the area and today Staro Sajmište is in a very bad shape. Few remaining old artists have no resources to renovate the complex themselves and the area became the gathering site for vagrants and criminals, so the ateliers are often looted. The population of the neighborhood was 2,250 in 2002.

After the new site of the Belgrade Fair was constructed on the right bank of the Sava, Sajmište became known as "Staro Sajmište" ("old fair ground").

References

* "Beograd - plan grada"; M@gic M@p, 2006; ISBN 86-83501-53-1