In The Shade of The Bubanj Memorial Fists, Nis, Serbia

(Part Two of a more detailed account of my time in Nis, Serbia)

Welcome to the dark side of the moon.

The three stone fists of the Bubanj Memorial Park stretch defiantly skyward.  They jut unnaturally out of the featureless, flat grassy field like alien-made monoliths on the surface of a far away planet.  Or as one of my friends so eloquently put it, "Dude, it looks like the cover of a Pink Floyd album."

It was still scorching hot.  I sat in the shade of the largest fist in deep, melancholy thought.  My thought process was a depressing continuation of that from Crvni Krist Concentration Camp where I had just came from.  Although Bubanj Memorial Park is located several kilometers from Nis and requires a 30 minute walk uphill, it is intimately connected to the camp.  The prisoners of Crveni Krst were executed at Bubanj Hill.

The three fists are different sizes to show that men, women and children were all killed and buried here.  Since bodies were buried with bulldozers and many were burned to cover up evidence, the number of dead can only be vaguely placed at somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000.  At one point between February 16th and 17th, 1942 over 1,400 prisoners were executed on the hill.

Bubanj Memorial was as lonely that day as Crveni Krst.  I sat under the largest fist for nearly an hour and not a soul came to interrupt my peace.  Once again there were no signs to explain the history nor tourist-friendly lights to illuminate the stones.  The only signs of human interaction with the monuments were squiggles of blue graffiti.  The wide, grassy field was overgrown and unkempt.  Amazingly the loneliness here felt more crushing than in the camp.  Dying in a concentration camp is horrifying enough, but being brought to die on an extremely isolated, unidentified hill in the middle of a forest seems far more frightening.

This sculpture has no explanation

The sun was setting and the moment was over.  I am not some heroic backpacker who independently desires to learn of the history and suffering of the Serbian people by visiting such an unfamiliar place.  The reality is that a Serbian friend told me about it and I thought, "That sounds like a good idea."  She was kind enough to let me explore the field and monoliths on my own as she slept by the path that lead to the desolate area.  If not for her, perhaps I never would have translated the Cyrillic message on a stone I saw at the memorial before we descended the long hill back to Nis:

  “From the blood of communists and patriots fists were born: fists of revolt and warning, fists of the revolution, fists of liberty. We were shot, but never killed, never subdued. We crushed the darkness and paved the way for the Sun.”    
                                                                                                                      --Ivan Vuckovic                                                                                    

My Own Private Concentration Camp in Nis, Serbia

(Part One of a more detailed account of my time in Nis, Serbia.)

I've been to Auschwitz in Poland.

It hit me in the gut.  I felt sad at the mass atrocities that had happened.  I felt relieved that my great-grandparents from Poland had left in the 1890s so they had avoided the horrors of the war.  I felt angry and felt like punching some asshole tourist when I saw him filming and taking pictures of the interior of the prisons and cells in direct violations of the rules. I generally hate rules, but...don't you have any respect? Asshole.

I had many strong feelings.  But they were stronger at Crveni Krst Concentration Camp in Nis, Serbia.  

Why?  At Auschwitz I stood in a line for a ticket, followed a tour guide around in a line, watched other tour groups walking through various parts of the camp and finished the tour at a souvenir shop.  All the exhibits were clean and shiny and well-kept.  The whole thing felt like a creepy, well-maintained ride at The Walt Disneyland of Death.

Crveni Krst looks like it hasn't been touched since it closed in 1944.  The one employee simply collected the $1 entry fee, let me in and went back to sleep.  He offered no tour, no advice and no explanation.  Not a single other tourist came during the hour I spent there.  All the signs were in Serbian Cyrillic so I could only make vague assumptions of what happened.  I was alone with my own private concentration camp.

I did not feel a cold chill as I walked into the camp; rather I felt extremely hot, sweaty and uncomfortable.  My American brain has problems with metric conversions, but that scalding Serbian summer cemented in my mind what 40 Celsius feels like: really fucking hot (or 104 Fahrenheit.)  Any prisoner who had been there during the summer between 1941 and 1944 would be sweating bullets for more reasons than one.  Ironically, stepping inside the prison building was relieving. 

The lack of any English in the building confounded my attempts to learn the history.  I squinted at the exhibit signs and desperately hoped to understand them, but I did not magically gain the ability to read Cyrillic.  One wall had pictures of various prisoners, so I started counting them until I lost track.  Human skulls were in a display case and I could only assume they were from dead prisoners. The entire experience left me feeling more lost and alone, until finally I found a room full of artwork that put the camp in perspective.

Kids draw the damnest things

The artwork was graphic, disturbing and was clearly drawn by children.  In the United States these drawings would get a child sent to the school psychologist for counseling and a call to the parents.  Here they appeared to be a project approved by the school itself.  I was able to discern that there had been various acts of torture against Jews, Gypsies and Communist prisoners.  Several pictures depicted a large unarmed revolt.  Many prisoners were escaping over the walls, but many others were shot dead while tangled in the barbwire.


I wish more history was told this way.  If I could have read the adults' Cyrillic signs, I'm sure they would have tried to impress me with elaborate stories involving phrases like "astounding heroism," "incredible atrocities," and "never again in our lives."  These fancy words are always accompanied by various facts, figures, graphs and numbers.  Do we need numbers to prove that war is bad?  The childrens' drawings get to the point.  

                         Some people live.  

                                                    Some people die.

The first floor was a museum.  The second floor was just a large attic with prison cells; nothing more.  The cell doors were open, so I went inside one and sat down.  I didn't think.  I didn't want to think, because I would start coming up with all those florid, elaborate, "adult" phrases that I hate.  I stared at the door.  Then I stared at a wall.  Then I picked another wall and stared at it.  I stared at different walls until I found myself staring out the shutter window that was in the roof.

I started thinking.  What if I couldn't leave?

(Of course I'm an adult, so I had many thoughts, and later I fact-checked everything with my Serbian friends and the Internet.  But I'm not some douchebag who works for Lonely Planet, so I won't write it here.)

The Do Absolutely Nothing Tour of Nis, Serbia

There's actually plenty to do in Nis, but the best way to enjoy this slow southern Serbian town is by doing absolutely nothing.  Find an outdoor cafe, order a black, Turkish coffee and waste the afternoon away.  After you're done with that grab a cold Jelen beer, sit by the river and waste the night away.  You'll learn a lot...especially if you're with the right people.

This is how I spent my last trip to Nis in 2011 so there's not much to say.  For those ambitious tourists who like to plan ambitious scheduled itineraries (boring), I'll share my big accidental Nis trip from summer 2010.  As follows...

Downtown Nis. What's the antonym for 'bustling'?

Nis seems to specialize in morbid, depressing tourism.  Here's a list of the uplifting, happy locations you can visit when you aren't discussing the uplifting politics of Serbia over coffee:

1. Nazi Concentration Camp which was ironically a Red Cross building
2. Bubanj Memorial where many of the camp prisoners were executed
3. Nis Fortress where Turks and Serbs killed each other
4. Skull Tower which is composed of the skulls of Serbs who were killed by Turks

Sounds like a lot of fun, right?  I only visited the Concentration Camp, Bubanj Memorial and partied at the Fortress. Perhaps the most depressing item is that Nis Fortress has been left in neglect, thereby allowing local Mafia to build - you guessed it - a disco on the fortress.  Serbians accept this as Mafia doing what Mafia does, and in fact the 'historical' disco is a great place to go out in town.

I will describe the places I've visited in more detail in the next few blogs...when I get around to it. People in Nis are never in a hurry, so I will honor them by not hurrying this writing.  When I'm in Nis I simply go with the flow and do what the locals tell me.  They mainly tell me to slow down, relax and drink more.  I'm happy to say that I'm doing that as I write.

So before we take a tour of Nis, here's a big Jelen Pivo toast to all of my wild Serbs:

  "Ziveli!! Aj De Breee!"