The day Vukovar's murder is commemorated

It took the column almost three hours to get from Vukovar hospital to the cemetery. For three hours, an endless procession of people walked from one mythical place to another. It is not a silent column, there is no silence in it.
The prayer group counts the rosary, murmuring "Hail Mary, Mother of God."

Others show anyone who wants to listen where things happened during the battle for Vukovar. A third group, among whom displaced Vukovar residents are most easily recognized, hug, shake hands, kiss, and laugh. They haven't seen each other in a long time. They have survived another year, and the day has come again when they meet former fellow citizens, comrades-in-arms, people who were once their neighbors.

The official name of the march is the Column of Remembrance. For them, however, it is a column of remembrance. Meetings with dear people remind them that they were once citizens of Vukovar, that they were once residents of the same city.

-Look up there, those two are mine, a girl suddenly shouts. We turn towards her voice and see which two are hers. She stands under the list of missing persons, which stretches for tens and tens of meters, with densely printed names and surnames. She laughs, her friends take pictures of her under the names of her missing loved ones. She will have a picture to remind her.

From the Vukovar hospital, soldiers of the JNA and various Chetnik paramilitary groups took out the wounded, hospital staff, and some civilians who hoped to find salvation there. They took them away and killed more than two hundred of them. The luckier ones ended up in concentration camps across the Danube. Many did not return today.

The hospital courtyard, where the last difficult moments of Vukovar's resistance took place and where a JNA officer lied that no one would be harmed, was not crowded today. Since the Column of Remembrance was split into a state one and a protest one two years ago, many are unsure whether the place is in the courtyard or if it is better to listen to the anthem, recitations, and songs of the naval choir on the street and watch on the video wall. The courtyard is too small anyway to accommodate everyone joining the column.

It takes the column almost three hours to get from the hospital to the cemetery. From one mythical place to another. It is not an easy path. Refreshments are offered along the road. More enterprising residents of the houses along the way offer rakija for five kuna a glass. To regain strength on the way to the cemetery.

Many give up after refreshments and decide to pay their respects to the deceased at the bar. There isn't a single free table in any cafe in Vukovar. It's lively in them, at least on this day. The day Vukovar's murder is commemorated, writes Index.