Surdulica massacre [SEP] end time
Surdulica massacre
The Surdulica massacre was the mass murder of Serbian men by Bulgarian occupational authorities in the southern Serbian town of Surdulica in 1916 and early 1917, during World War I. Members of the Serbian intelligentsia in the region, mostly functionaries, teachers, priests and former soldiers, were detained by Bulgarian forces—ostensibly so that they could be deported to the Bulgarian capital, Sofia—before being taken into the forests around Surdulica and killed. An estimated 2,000–3,000 Serbian men were executed by the Bulgarians in the town and its surroundings
Surdulica and its surroundings. At the same time the Bulgarian military authorities killed also many civilians in Vranje, Zajecar, Kacanik, and other places in that area. The Bulgarian head of the Vranje district described the executed men as "killers, thieves and butchers" whose "[crimes] were so great that at least ten years would be needed to mend their evil".
Aftermath.
The relatives of those executed in and around Surdulica were harassed and persecuted by Bulgarian authorities following the massacre. An American writer named