Jajinci

Jajinci (Јајинци, jâjiːntsi) is an urban neighborhood located in the municipality of Voždovac, in Belgrade, Serbia. It was the site of the worst carnage in Serbia during World War II when German occupational forces executed nearly 80,000 people, many of them prisoners of the nearby Banjica concentration camp. Jewish women and children from German Sajmište concentration camp, killed in a special gas truck on their way to Belgrade were also buried here. Jajinci is located in the Lipnica creek valley. Once a small village far from downtown Belgrade, Jajinci today has grown into one continuous metropolitan area with the rest of the city. It borders the neighborhoods of Banjica on the north, Kumodraž on the east, and Selo Rakovica on the south. The eastern border of the neighborhood is marked by the Jelezovac creek, which also forms a border with the municipality of Rakovica. Boža Radulović, merchant, brought the first car in Belgrade on 3 April 1903, and hired a photographer Sreten Kostić as his driver. Kostić, who later became a professional, even a royal driver, built a house in Jajinci in the 1920s, close to the popular kafana "Župa". There, at the curve on the Avala Road, Kostić placed the first modern traffic sign in Belgrade, which said држи десно, or "keep right". Thanks to him, Avala Road became the first concrete paved street in Belgrade, and Župa location became a pitstop in the first races organized in the city. In 2018, two streets in the vicinity of the former kafana were named afer Sreten Kostić and Župa. The settlement spreads from the central street, the Boulevard of Liberation, which starts in central Belgrade (the Slavija square). A former village and separate settlement, Jajinci is today a local community (mesna zajednica) within the municipality of Voždovac. Unlike neighboring Banjica, it was never developed with high modern buildings and remained a settlement of smaller, family houses, but did evolve from agricultural into a typical suburban area with most inhabitants working in Belgrade.