THE CITY was turned into fire and smoke, said the Luftwaffe report after the clear Sunday sky from 6:30 to 6:45 in the morning darkened the smoke of Belgrade, which was destroyed by hundreds of German planes with the first bombs, cannons and machine guns.
In four sorties, 468 fighters and bombers dropped 197 tons of destructive and incendiary bombs on the capital of Serbia and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Civilians were killed, hundreds of residential and institutional buildings were demolished and burned, among them the National Library of Serbia (NBS) on Kosančićevo Venec. It was here that yesterday, traditionally, the memory of April 6, 1941 was commemorated, the day when hundreds of thousands of books and precious manuscripts were turned into dust and ashes.
The wreath and the books were laid at that place by the director of the NBS, Vladimir Pistalo, and Manuel Saracin, the special envoy of Germany for the countries of the Western Balkans, in the presence of the German ambassador, Anka Konrad, and the state secretary of the Ministry of Culture, Miodrag Ivanovic.
Source: Novosti