Srbe na vrbe!
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The cry Srbe na vrbe!, meaning [Hang] the Serbs on the willow trees! is a hate speech slogan calling for extermination of the Serbs.
It was invented in 1914, at the beginning of the war of Austria-Hungary against Serbia, by the Slovenian Marko Natlačen.[1] It was popularized before WWII by Mile Budak, the chief architect of the Ustasha ideology and genocide against the Serbs. The cry became a reality in WWII, with hanging in NDH being an important in symbolics, if not in scope, part of the Holocaust and Ustasha genocide against the Serbs.
In present day Croatia, Croatian neo-Nazis, extreme nationalists and people who oppose return of Serbian refugees use it often. Graffiti with the phrase are also common, and appeared recently in 2006[2] and even an Orthodox church in Imotski was vandalized with such graffiti in 2004[3].
The same cry is most commonly heard shouted by Croatian sport fans at sport events involving Serbian teams, players or fans.
- At a game Cibona vs. Partizan in 2002, most of the audience was echoing the slogan in the Dražen Petrović Basketball Hall (capacity 5,000) in Zagreb, with one side of the audience yelling "Srbe" and the other replying enthusiastically "Na vrbe!"; other related cries and insults and hate-cries were yelled, like "Kill the Serbs", and this was repeated throughout the play, around a hundred times[1].
- When the Croatian club NK Rijeka signed the Serbian football goalkeeper Dragan Žilić, his initial plays were troubled by groups of fans denigrating him (and Serbs in general) with this phrase among others. [2] Yet, the management of the club appealed to the fans to stop this, and eventually most of the Armada (the Rijeka supporters association) decided to leave Žilić alone, and as time went by, only the few vocal fans remained who would insult him.
- The supporters of basketball club Zadar called Tornado have been known to use the slogan as well[3] particularly as their club competes in the Goodyear Adriatic League.
[edit] References
- ^ Slovene History – 20th Century, selected articles by Dr. Božo Repe, Department of History of the University of Ljubljana and the petition of 120 Croatian intellectuals
- ^ Human Rights Watch World Report 2006 - Croatia - January 2006
- ^ Information Service of the Serbian Orthodox Church, April 28, 2004
