- The massacre in Kragujevac on the 21st of October 1941 was one of the worst crimes committed by the German Army in World War II.
- The motive for the massacre was exacting revenge the loss the German forces suffered on the 16th of October fighting against the Chetniks and the Partisans on the road from Kragujevac to Gornji Milanovac. There were 10 dead and 26 wounded German soldiers.
- The massacre began on Sunday the 19th of October in several surrounding villages – Maršić, Mečkovac (Ilićevo), and Grošnica. 415 people were executed and 21 managed to survive.
- That same night, Kragujevac was barricaded, and on Monday the 20th of October the Germans arrested several thousand civilians, among them several hundred students from the schools of Kragujevac.
- Around 6 p.m., one group of Serbs and Jews was taken outside to be executed. There were 123 men and women in that group. Ten people from this group survived the execution.
- At 7 a.m. the next morning, on the 21st of October, the German forces started removing people from the canon sheds to be executed. By 2 p.m. the massacre was finished. Several thousand people lay dead in the valleys of two local streams.
- Today, our data shows that on the 21st of October 1941, 2,264 people were killed and 31 survived the executions.
Among the victims were around 300 young boys and high school students, as well as 40 children aged between 12 and 15, the majority of whom were of Roma descent.
