Šumarice Memorial Park (Serbian Cyrillic: Меморијални парк Шумарице) is the site near Kragujevac, Serbia of the execution of an estimated 2,300 men and boys of the town by the German occupation forces on October 21, 1941, during World War II. According to Cohen, "All males from the town between the ages of sixteen and sixty were assembled and the victims -- including high school students -- were selected from among them."[1]
There are several monuments in the park: the monument to killed schoolchildren and their teachers (the "Broken Wing" monument), the monument of pain and defiance, the monument "One hundred for one", the monument resistance and freedom, the monument to shoe cleaners are some of the well known.
The Museum of Genocide is located at the site of the massacre.
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Data concerning the number of people shot in Kragujevac are quite various, though among our public, in literature, journalism, even in certain historical textbooks the number 7000 shot prevails. They are often the result of personal impressions which this crime left on contemporaries, and less the result of serious Investigation. Data in German sources: announcements and numerous reports of German commanders and commands speak of 2300 people shot. In the war reports of partisan and cetnik sources we can find mention of 5000 to 12000 people shot, while in the documents of the royal Yugoslav government in London the most frequently mentioned number is 6000 victims. The security chief of the Danube province, Danilo Mihailovic, spent a few days in Kragujevac after the shooting and being overwhelmed by the proportions of the tragedy, but lacking the possibility for a more precise insight, he informed Milan Nedic's government that 7100 to 7300 people had been shot. However, the first serious research into establishing the crime of the occupiers which included the number of people shot in Kragujevac, was carried out after the liberation by the town committee of the regional commission of Serbia for establishing the crimes of the occupiers and their aides. The result of their work is contained in the report issued on 12. 7. 1945 and it records 2324 persons shot. This number, given by the official state organ, was used by Democratic Federal Yugoslavia in its indictment at the trial of a group of German generals before the Allied military court no. 5 in Nuremberg and at the trial of German generals and other high officers before the military court of the third Yugoslav army in Belgrade in 1947. When in 1953 the institution Memorial Park, 'The October of Kragujevac' was established which included the museum 'October 21st', the process of investigating the shooting and collecting material about the people shot was continued. This process continues to the present day. The results of this work indicate 2796 men shot (415 of them in villages and 2379 in the city of Kragujevac; it is not clear whether all 415 were executed in October or during the entire World War II) and 61 survivors, from October 19th to October 21st, 1941.
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