BiH yesterday lost another great, brave man Lazar Manojlović. The righteous of the world, who saved Bosniaks from ethnic cleansing during the war putting his own life on the line, passed away last night in Bijeljina after a short illness.
Lazar Manojlović was born in 1934 in Velika Obarska near Bijeljina. He graduated from the High Pedagogical School in Tuzla, department of Serbo-Croatian language and Yugoslav literature. He has been working as a teacher and since 1994 as a freelance journalist.
As the director of elementary school Radojka Lakić in Bijeljina, in 1992 Manojlović rejected the request from those who were conducting ethnic cleansing to let children of only one ethnic group attend the school, as well as to give them the lists of other children. He also declined the order by the authorities at the time to fire nationally ineligible teachers. Furthermore, he refused to remove the monument for the national hero of the Second World War, Radojka Lakić, after whom the school was named, and which was placed in the school yard. Due to all above mentioned, he received the award “Duško Kondor”.
Manojlović managed to set several Bosniaks free from the camp in Batković, risking his own life. He was forced out by armed soldiers – camp keepers. This is why he received the stamp of the city of Padova in 2008 and an olive tree was planted in his honor in the “Park of the righteous around the world”, established with the aim of spreading the culture of peace and preserving memory of courageous people from all around the world who opposed genocides in the past century.
Manojlović is known by everyone who cares about moral and civil courage, since the times he opposed the masters of evil in Bijeljina and refused to separate children based on their ethnic belonging and when he said it clearly and loudly in front of the cameras of the British television, at the time when heads were falling down for no reason. Then he rejected the request to change the name of his school to “Sveti Sava” – an act that got him expelled from work and left him practically on the street. However, he did not remain silent.
Manojlović helped the persecuted people as much as he could, and then he started using pen and voice to present the truth that no one else wanted to say. Great Pole Adam Mihnjik once said that the highest degree of patriotism is when you are capable of being ashamed of your people, your homeland. Precisely Manojlović’s text about Srebrenica titled “I am ashamed” echoed as if it was coming from another world. With this text, he incurred on himself the wrath of all supporters of Radovan Karadžić, who are ruling Republika Srpska and Srebrenica, and was declared the greatest traitor of the Serbs. It is hard to even imagine what such a condemnation brings along, but Lazar Manojlović has not bowed his head once…
Manojlović is the author of numerous expert, pedagogical, and literary works, he was an associate for numerous prominent magazines and newspapers, and he published eight books.
(Source: klix.ba)
