“To me, The Vladislav Ribnikar Elementary School in Vračar is no longer a school since 3 May (when the crime took place). It was destroyed on that day, and no child should set foot there to have classes ever again because it isn’t right. That must no longer be a school. A memorial centre should be built there.
“Also, the school year should be cancelled in all of Serbia, and solidarity should be shown, rather than continuing with the attempts to normalize all of this. It’s OK – and so it should be – for children to spend the time until the summer with their homeroom groups and teachers, but outside of schools – on sports grounds, playgrounds, or parks. They should talk, they should laugh, they should cry, they should scream, they should hug each other… We should focus on all the children over the summer, and from 1 September onwards, a full reform of the education system should be carried out – elementary school should be changed as a concept.”
These are the words that Milanka Negić, mother of Sofia (13), who was killed on 3 May in Vračar, starts her story with. She has decided to make a public statement in order to try to change something and point to the fact that the current elementary school education system should change, as children need to be offered the kind of content that will primarily develop empathy, closeness, friendship, and mutual respect, rather than – as has been the case so far – everything being about getting higher grades.
“I also have a four and a half-year-old child, and the will and strength to fight. I want my child to grow up here, and it matters to me what sort of society it will be growing up in… That’s why I wish to point all of this out, and I find it hard to believe that everyone these days seems to be missing the point, focusing on everything else but the crucial things. I have to say this although it takes a lot of energy, because I’m putting in a lot of effort and energy to somehow keep Sofia by my side, to hear her voice, to somehow find a way to deal with everything going forward…” Milanka Negić said in her interview with Kurir.
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Sofia was in the restroom when the shooting started on that tragic day. Her friend was waiting for her outside, but she ran into another restroom stall when she heard the shots. However, Sofia ran out into the hall and was killed.
Sofija’s friend’s message
‘I couldn’t let you know…’
In the sea of messages that Milanka Negić has received in the past several days, an especially harrowing one came from one of Sofija’s friends, who knew straight away that she was killed:
“A couple of days later he told me, ‘I’m sorry for not letting you know immediately, I knew straight away that Sofija was killed, but I couldn’t tell you. Sofija was my best friend, and I really enjoyed every moment I spent with her.’ “
“We’ve experienced the greatest tragedy to befall anyone in the world, and now they’re making children go back to school, trying to normalize everything, and just go on… But this is ‘The Bloody Tale’ of the 21st century. I remember, when I was little, every 21 October the entire homeroom group thought about what had happened in Kragujevac in 1941 and the entire group was crying then, was emotional, and had empathy, even though 40 years had passed. There’s a reason for that – children identify with children, that is how empathy develops. We’d never cry when we listened to stories about the death of a hero – we did feel sorry, but when we heard that children had died, then we’d cry. And our society today has no empathy, you don’t get it at school. There is only some sort of unhealthy competition and envy there, that is the only thing that is developed… The greatest emphasis is given to grades at schools, and there’s a great pressure in that respect, so there are 20 times more straight-A students than when I went to school as a result. The thresholds for enrolling in secondary schools have been raised, and the children are frustrated… That’s why this grade-related pressure must go away now and not later. The focus at elementary schools should be on something else, on teaching values to children, on offering them a certain kind of content, making sure they develop a cultural sense and spend time together, bonding, developing empathy… That is the priority, but it isn’t there now,” she says, adding:
“From 1 September, this sort of content must be part of the elementary school experience, with children going to the theatre, the cinema, for walks, holding hands, gathering on sports grounds. An athlete or a musician will always come for a visit… Our children have no ties now, it all depends on what their parents are like, how much they have invested, and in what sort of environment the children are growing up… And some parents work day and night, and have no time to devote themselves to their children. This is why the society should find this important. If elementary schooling is legally mandatory, then children should learn there more than just reading and writing, adding up and taking away; rather, they should learn how to feel empathy, friendships should be developed, and certain sorts of content should be offered to them… If it’s the case that we cannot expect that sort of content to be provided by each family, then it is a matter for the society to take care of – it has a duty to be concerned with such things. It’s important for the society what sort of people these children will grow up to be… Therefore, the priority now is for the society to turn its attention to children. All across Serbia. To redirect all the energy, which is now spent on walks and rallies, to children. Let’s concern ourselves with children.”
She spoke with Branko Ružić
‘Everyone should look down and step aside’
One day after the crime was committed at the school, Milanka Negić received a call from the Ministry of Education. The Minister of Education Branko Ružić, who has in the meantime tendered his resignation, offered his condolences and told her that the City Hall would take care of all funeral arrangements. He said to her that he found all this horrific and that he was deeply sorry.
“I told him, ‘It’s all your fault, this society has no values, the children are not offered any sort of content, the state isn’t taking care of them… I think that anyone involved in politics in the past 30 years, or in any sort of regulating and governing, together with all those school administrations, has contributed to the present state of affairs.’ All of them should look down and step aside. For 30 years this society has focused on who’s in power, and whoever has been in power has only been scratching the surface, there’s been no real change, and for the rest of us, all that’s left is dregs. Enough is enough,” Negić said.
‘Children don’t want to go to the same school’
Milanka Negić said that it is high time the society united, and that it does not matter at all who is at the top of the state pyramid, but that all this must start from the grassroots – the society at large:
“I want the society to unite, and for each individual in Serbia, each association, or community – whether or not they are in charge of this area – to make a statement regarding what I’m talking about and say if they support it. If the society makes it clear that it wants this, then it doesn’t matter who’s in power… When it comes to this issue – which is a basic one – the only way is to start is from the grassroots up. Because we have reached a point where a child has killed our children at school. You cannot sink any lower than that.”
Negić says that she has been receiving messages of support from children in recent days, telling her how truly sorry they are about everything that has happened, that they loved Sofija very much, and that they enjoyed every moment that they spent with her… Most of them do not want to back to classes at the same school.
“A friend of Sofija’s told me, ‘I will never set foot there again. Renovation means nothing…’ These children are saying to their parents that they cannot go to school, that they’re not ready… And it’s not a question of whether it’s early or not, because they should never have to set foot there again. What they could do with that school could be to make a memorial centre, tear it down and then make a memorial park, make one half a memorial park or memorial centre, and the other half a centre for education and support that children don’t get at schools, where they often have no one to go to… Perhaps it could be an institution of sorts – if children have no one to go to at their school, they could go there when they have a problem… At our school (Ribnikar Elementary), the children I know were afraid of the school pedagogue, she wasn’t helping them, and none of them went to her of their own accord if they had a problem, as Sofija and other children and their parents had told me… They would say, ‘Just wanna make sure the pedagogue doesn’t see me, just wanna make sure the pedagogue doesn’t see me…’ My daughter had had seven green highlights in her hair made because she felt that she didn’t belong to this system, similar to how I had been an ‘offbeat girl’ back in the 1990s – she wanted to have clear markers of identity, to be able to easily recognize likeminded people, but also to make herself beautiful… And she was happy and content, because she liked them a lot. And the pedagogue doesn’t understand such things, she didn’t understand this most wonderful person that has ever walked this earth, this big-hearted person who had never insulted anyone, who found it unnatural to say or do something that would make someone uncomfortable… The pedagogue told her that she couldn’t have highlights although half of the students dyed their hair, apparently because it was against the rules… This thing with the pedagogue lasted a month, and it stopped when I announced that I’d come see her,” Milanka Negić said.
‘We had our bubble, where she was safe’
‘School is the only place where I couldn’t save her’
Negić told us that the school was the only place where she was unable to save her daughter.
“In my life, I needed to create a sort of bubble of my own, and for her to be there… Then this bubble spread, and I was happy that I had given birth to her in this environment, where she could draw on all these values that she had drawn on. What was left was that school, which is a mini-Serbia of sorts, but Sofija was strong. She felt protected, I protected her, I just couldn’t protect her at school, never had a chance to protect her… On that day, she probably ran out because had heard something, she ran out to see what it was, that’s how naïve she was… So there, the one thing I hadn’t taught her is how to react if there’s a shooting,” she said, adding that now “elementary schools have become the least safe places in Serbia.”
She also said that one of her first reactions when she heard that her daughter had been killed was: “Why did I ever yell at you….?”
“If I had known that she would live for only 13 years, I would have given her even more love…” she said.
‘There will be pressures and opposition’
According to Negić, if a memorial centre is built where the school is now, children could come there once a year, at an appropriate age, perhaps from grade four or five on.
“That place should be a warning, a reminder, a monument… For children to visit from a certain age in the same way visits to Kragujevac were organized back in the day. So that they could learn about the lives of the victims, identify with them, and feel empathy… And it needs to be made sure that the kid (who opened fire) is no longer mentioned by name or by initials, that his photograph isn’t published, so that he doesn’t become popular or get glorified in any way, and that no one identifies with him,” Negić pointed out.
She added that there are many parents who support her view that there should never again be a school where the Ribnikar Elementary is now:
“Many parents agreed with this, but as time goes on, they’re starting to give in a bit. You know, when you’re a good person and when you want to be understanding of everything, then you eventually get tricked…. That’s why some of them are there now without a second thought, even though the majority doesn’t support going back to that school, at least based on what I’ve heard from the parents…”
She is nonetheless aware that there will be parents who will oppose the closing of the school because that would “force them to move out of their comfort zone.”
“There will be great resistance to changing anything. Some parents of the children who went to classes in the other shift (not the one during which the massacre took place) or who are in lower grades, want everything swept under the rug, for things to keep going somehow, without changing anything, and that’s where most pressures and opposition will come from… There are, of course, those who are in despair and who offer us all the support in the world. There are teachers from the other shift who support the idea to keep going because they don’t even know the children who were killed, injured, or traumatized – they weren’t there, or their children weren’t there, so they don’t immediately see and don’t want to see it as their problem too… That’s how bad things are in this society. People, this is the greatest tragedy that has ever happened anywhere in the world – a child has killed other children. What are we talking about here? Also, it isn’t fair that the government has relegated this question to the school itself and the Ribnikar Elementary parents, leaving it to them to solve this problem. I think that it isn’t even possible because it’s too complex…”
A tragic day at school
‘A teacher was crying out, “Anyone alive?” ‘
Milanka Negić said that there are teachers who still do not understand what has happened, as well as that there are those who do not see the magnitude of this crime. According to her, the magnitude of the trauma in the children is yet to be seen.
“On that day, a teacher ran down from the floor above after he heard the shooting – he thought it was someone from the outside, at least two or three of them, that’s what it sounded like then – gun bursts. When he saw the bodies, he went back up and escorted the children to the exit, and then walked into the classroom in which fire was opened, crying out, ‘Anyone alive?’ “ Negić said.
Kurir.rs / Boban Karović
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