Row over Croatian memorial

Antipodean Andy · Apr 16, 2008

BalkanInsight.com - Row over Croatia World War Two Memorial

16 April 2008 Zagreb _ A row has erupted over the Croatian Parliament's decision to give more money to a World War Two memorial remembering fallen fascist fighters.

Croatia's Parliament has allocated some € 69,000 for the annual honour of Croatian fascist forces killed in killed in Austria in May 1945 while the money for the commemoration of the fascists' victims at the Jasenovac concentration camp is just € 14,000.

Epfraim Zuroff, a well-known activist said the move was "very disturbing" and added he considered the decision "a shameful one."

Zuroff told Zagreb's javno.hr that it showed Croatia cared more about killed Croats than about the murdered Serbs, Jews and Roma during Croatia's wartime Nazi puppet regime.

Some Croatian officials justified parliament's decision saying those in charge of the Jasenovac anniversary memorial did not ask for money, and the fund commemorating fallen fascist fighters had traditionally got less money.

Others however said the money should be equally split.

It is estimated that between 1941-1945, up to 80,000 Serbs, Jews, Roma and anti-fascist Croatians were killed at Jasenovac.

In Bleiburg in Austria, some 30,000 mostly Croatian fascist troops, from the wartime Ustasha regime were killed when their independent state was crushed by the Yugoslav communists.

The estimates for both events substantially vary, with both Croat and Serb nationalists
putting the victims' figures up to 10 times higher than independent historians.
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Kyt · Apr 21, 2008

EJP | News | Eastern Europe | Croatia commemorates WWII concentration camp victims

Croatia on Sunday paid homage to the victims of a notorious concentration camp, known as the country's Auschwitz, which was set up by its pro-Nazi regime during World War II.

"We are here since we do not forget the horrors which were committed here and in other similar camps set up on the territory controlled by the Ustasha regime," President Stipe Mesic said at a ceremony held at the Jasenovac memorial complex.

Some 1,000 people, including the camp survivors, members of the victims' families, top officials and ambassadors of Western and neighbouring countries attended the memorial ceremony.

"Our gathering is dedicated to the victims of more than 60 years ago but also to a wish that with a constant repetition of the truth about what was going on at the time we prevent a possibility that something similar ever happens again," Mesic said.

He stressed the necessity of the "fight against oblivion" and warned that the number of those who had witnessed the atrocities was decreasing.

"In 10 or 20 years it is unlikely that there would be still any. The meaning of gatherings as the today's one will then become clear."

Sunday's ceremony marked the 63rd anniversary of an attempted escape by some 600 inmates of whom only some 90 have survived.

The ceremony at Jasenovac, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) southeast of Zagreb, is held every year on the Sunday closest to April 22 when the escape took place.

During the ceremony a multi-denominational religious service was held for the camp's victims.

The camp was set up in mid-1941 by Croatia's pro-Nazi Ustasha regime. It was dismantled a few days after the attempted breakout in 1945.

The number of Jasenovac victims -- mostly Serbs, followed by Jews, Roma and anti-fascist Croatians -- still remains disputed varying from tens of thousands to 700,000 according to Serbian figures.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum estimates that 100,000 people were murdered in Jasenovac, while the Simon Wiesenthal Centre puts the figure at some 600,000.
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Row over Croatian memorial

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