Jasenovac, Croatia, May 2014
Wreaths and flowers to remember WWII victims
Photo: FaH
Instead of the usual Sunday after/closest to 22nd April the commemoration of WWII breakout from Jasenovac camp occurred this year on May 4! Reason? Sunday 27 April Croatia’s president just had to, it seems, attend the canonisation in Rome of Pope John Paul II and John XXIII, even though he is no church-goer or believer!
Surviving former inmates, top Croatian officials, foreign ambassadors in Croatia, and many other delegations on Sunday May 4 attended a ceremony commemorating the 69th anniversary of the breakout of inmates from the Ustasha-run Jasenovac camp on 22 April 1945, paying tribute to 83,000 victims of this WWII camp.
Of the 1,073 inmates who were in the camp on 22 April 1945, 600 attempted to escape and only about a hundred survived. The remaining 473 inmates who did not try to escape were killed and their bodies were cremated. The camp Jasenovac was the largest forced-labor and concentration camp set up by the Nazi-style Independent State of Croatia (NDH) in marshland at the confluence of the Sava and Una rivers near the village of Jasenovac in the second half of 1941 and operated until the breakout in 1945.
Addressing last Sunday’s commemoration, President Ivo Josipovic, Parliament Speaker Josip Leko and Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic as well as other speakers sent a message that crimes such as those that had been committed in Jasenovac should never again be allowed to happen.
Josipovic, in his speech, called on everyone to protect the memory of the people who had died in that camp, a place that would remain in collective memory forever.
“Evil should be called by its real name, opposed and denied any opportunity to happen ever again,” he stated.
At this site, crimes, that was genocide, were perpetrated and it would always be painful and we will never forget it, Josipovic said in his speech.
We must sincerely regret at the commission of such horrendous crimes in the name of creating a Croatian state, the president added.
I just wish he would also name and talk about the victims at Jasenovac who perished at the hands of communists in the years post-WWII!
What about the horrendous crimes committed to create the Yugoslav state!?
Those who perpetrated such crimes also did evil to Croatia and the Croatian people, Josipovic said recalling that Jasenovac was the detention centre for those of a “wrong” ethnic background, a “wrong” religion or worldviews.
He warned that in times of social crises such as the current one, there were risks of exclusion, hatred and intolerance and that “germs of fascism and other totalitarian ideologies always remain latently present” – you bet, Mr Josipovic – and you are an ugly germ of communism!
Don’t forget that a dire economic situation can pave the way to fascism. Crimes perpetrated in Jasenovac and other camps throughout Europe remind us of the devastating potential of totalitarianism, Josipovic said adding that everything should be done to prevent recurrence of such crimes,
No need to say, Croatia’s Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic and Speaker of Parliament Josip Leko – all of whom are political pals with Ivo Josipovic when it comes to communism of former Yugoslavia, said essentially the same things albeit in different words.
Prime Minister Milanovic said also that crimes committed during the NDH regime had no justification. Indeed, I agree!
Croatia’s “red” leadership failed, once again, to use this opportunity for setting the records straight on the truth about Jasenovac. They failed miserably at pointing out to the Serbian or pro-Serbian propaganda, which promotes the lie – because such figures pulled out of the sleeves of those who offer no verifiable corroboration or evidence in particular to the number of Serbs that perished in Jasenovac – that ” more than 700,000 Serbs, 23,000 Jews and around 80,000 Roma died in Jasenovac in the period between 1941 and 1945″.
If Ivo Josipovic truly cared about the dignity of victims and justice for the truth and perpetrator then he would lead the way to oust or deny any credibility of this rotten lie about the number of victims perished instead of allowing such propaganda to flourish – unchecked and unchallenged. It is his duty and the duty of the whole Croatian leadership to actively protect Croatia from lies and vilification whether based upon historical or current events!
But telling the truth about Jasenovac and actively trying to stop the lies is something that is politically not of interest to current and former communists and antifascists! If it were not like that then this appalling set of figures in Croatian leadership (communists) would have long ago spoken of the THREE and NOT ONE Jasenovac camp. The three Jasenovac camps existed under different political regimes and they were: 1941-1945 under NDH Ustashe, 1945-1948 and 1948 – 1951 under Yugoslav Communists, which means that among the perpetrators of communist purges other “Yugoslav” nationals were involved as well as Croats.
Why does this set of Croatian leadership still place the victims of all three Jasenovac camps into one Jasenovac camp, into one crime – the one from WWII under Ustashe?
“Such false and malicious manipulation with the number of victims is detrimental to the Croatian people,” said in his recent letter to the Croatian Prime Minister as well as the President Mr Stephen Asic, Secretary of the Croatian World Congress .
“It is time to put a stop to these fabrications that these fabrications,” Asic continues in his letter, “The crimes that were committed cannot and should not be denied and certainly not justified, but also, at the same time, we cannot permit their belittlement through amplification of their number ad nauseum!
This kind of falsification of history is not only an attack against the perpetrators of these crimes but also against the whole of the Croatian nation. The ideological political divisions which once existed among us have no place in today’s democratic Croatia. That is why our positions in defending the Croatian name in the world need to be within a frame of unity. Only with the truth and unified positions will we change the picture the world has of us.”
It will be interesting to see what, if any, response Mr Stephen Asic from Australia (Croatian World Congress) will receive from Croatia’s Prime Minister and President! Indeed, one cannot but agree with what Mr Asic is saying regarding the number of victims being attributed to the regime of WWII Independent Croatia. The same Mr Stephen Asic is part of the advisory body to Croatia’s government on Croats living abroad – i.e. the body that was formed recently with view to increasing or improving the relationship between Croatia and its diaspora.
I am personally not holding my breath waiting for Mr Asic to receive a reply from Croatia’s top government and leadership posts. After all, and judging from their repeatedly twiste rhetoric on WWII and post-WWII the communists and former communists are not likely to own-up to their share of Jasenovac victims between 1945 and 1951any time soon. So it is up to the people, to us, to pursue setting the truth in the right places. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)
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Nakon što prošle godine premijer Zoran Milanović nije išao na komemoracije u Jasenovcu i Bleiburgu, jer kako je kazao, dosta mu je širenja mržnje i inata, ove godine se izgleda predomislio. Barem, kada je Jasenovac u pitanju. Stoga je premijer posjetio područje Jasenovac, gdje je, kako je najavljeno iz službe za odnose s javnošću, sudjeluje na komemoraciji u Spomen-području Jasenovac. Zanimljivo, kako je Milanović za Jasenovac pronašao vremena te ovaj posjet ugurao u svoj raspored.
S druge pak strane, polaganjem vijenaca i paljenjem svijeća na Memorijalnom groblju žrtava iz Domovinskog rata, ali i svetom misom koju je predvodio biskup srijemski msgr. Đuro Gašparac u Vukovaru je u subotu obilježen Dan grada i blagdan zaštitnika sv. Filipa i Jakova. No, za dolazak u Vukovar nitko od vladajućih nije našao dovoljno dobar razlog. Dokazalo se ovim potezom još jednom, po tko zna koji put ono što Vukovarci ponavljaju, da je njihov grad od ove Vlade zaboravljen.
Translation of comment by CROATIAN CENTER OF RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES: After not attending last year’s commemorations in Jasenovac and Bleiburg, because as he said, he has had enough of spreading of hatred and spite, Zoran Milanovic has it seems changed his mind this year; at least, as far as Jasenovac is concerned. Hence, the Prime Minister visited the Jasenovac area where, as announced from the office of public relations, he participated in the commemoration at the Jasenovac Memorial. It’s interesting how Milanovic found time for Jasenovac and slipped it into his itinerary.
On the other hand, though, laying of wreaths and lighting of candles at the Memorial cemetery for the victims of the Homeland War on Saturday, as well as the holding of Holy Mass headed by Syrmian Bishop Msgr Djuro Gasparan marked the Day of the city of Vukovar as well as the Feast Day of its protector Saints Philip and Jacob. Not a single person from the government found a good reason to attend this ceremony in Vukovar. It’s proven once again, for who knows how many times, that what people of Vukovar keep repeating: that this Government has forgotten their city.
REPLY: This Government has proven to be nothing but a spiteful, revengeful and incompetent pack of brats, CROATIAN CENTER of RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES, and their hatred for people who do not and did not tolerate communist or antifascist ways specific to former Yugoslavia is visible now just as much as it was visible in the oppression imposed in former Yugoslavia. They are incapable of representing the whole Croatian nation and its life.
Ostrich syndrome will always prevent reasonable dialogue about the nature of Jasenovac. It would just be too inconvenient for the autocrats if any myths were dispelled because those myths are holding up the house of cards right now that’s keeping them in power. Although even one innocent victim shouldn’t be ignored, the question of why inflate ad absurdum the number of victims, other than for reparations, when you know that the truth will come out sooner or later. I think the Jasenovac Research Institute even had the number of Serbs killed in Jasenovac at over 2 million until people started going through names and id’s on its site and found that someone probably just sent a crawler through vital statistics records from 1941-1945 and extracted everyone who died during that period, claiming that they were Jasenovac victims. I mean, what a disgusting way of recruiting to pad false statistics. It takes a lot of legitimacy away from its tragic story, not to mention humiliating the legitimate victims.
And then of course there is the one aspect of Jasenovac that they truly don’t want people to find out about, and that is the post-1945 use of the same facilities by the communists that set out to ensure that any “dissentients” were “dealt with”. Is it any wonder that Tito plowed the complex down instead of leaving it open as a reminder of the potential of human evil, as is the case with other camps of that nature? (and as an example of how insistent the new commie generation is on preserving myths, it’s good to take a look at Wikipedia’s entry on Jasenovac, particularly the “End of the camp” section, which proliferates outright lies about the actual documented truth about how the camp was shut down.
It is quite sickening to watch how the communists/antifascists keep trying harder and harder to promote the myth of numbers perished at Jasenovac, Brankec. In doing so they take a piece of the memory of the real victims away away, each time. The more they avoid the truth of the horror their regime perpetrated the more of the truth seeps out.
You’re right brankec, innocent victims shouldn’t be ignored, they should all be remembered and respected, whether they’re victims of Nazism, fascism or communism. But we know that communists use victims as political playthings to further their own cause, to tow the party line. The sooner these assholes are stripped off ALL their power in the public eye, the better. I’ve said this before and I’ll keep saying it for as long as I have to: Croatia’s leaders are disgusting, pathetic human beings, for using victims to further their cause. They do not care about victims at all, not victims of communism, not victims of fascism, not even victims from the Homeland war! Inflating the number of victims to make themselves seem like heroes is as disrespectful to real victims, as is denying that atrocities ever happened. It makes a mockery of those who died and those who did everything they could to survive. It is absolutely inhumane to do this and Croatia’s leadership has to be stopped. Such vile behaviour from people who have no sense of ethics and nothing to stand for but a murderous, oppressive regime. How heartbreaking for real victims to on one hand, be denied justice (Bleiburg victims) and on the other, have their suffering made a mockery by inflating numbers (Jasenovac victims). Horrible, unjustifiable behaviour on the part of Croatia’s leadership. Josipovic, Milanovic, I hope that one day your conscious destroys you from the inside out.
“Between its establishment in 1941 and its evacuation in April 1945, Croat authorities murdered thousands of people at Jasenovac. Among the victims were: between 45,000 and 52,000 Serb residents of the so-called Independent State of Croatia; between 12,000 and 20,000 Jews; between 15,000 and 20,000 Roma (Gypsies); and between 5,000 and 12,000 ethnic Croats and Muslims, who were political and religious opponents of the regime,” US Holocaust Museum – Holocaust Encyclopedia – perhaps the 700,000 Serbs, Serb say were killed in Jasenovac include the ones killed there after WWII by communists AND the Serb Jews exterminated in Serbia by mid-1942! The ultra-nationalist Serb line know how to play with figures – what a shame and disgrace
Thanks for the “recap”, Wilkinson! The truth can never be told too many times
Croatia’s current leadership is awful, awful, awful! And that’s only a small picture of the horror the politics of their Yugoslav predecessors did during and after WW2. They’re not budging an inch from the red line set by Tito: crush Croats no matter what ittakes.
Awful, awful, awful, Rod ney.
Thanks again for sharing such an important history and opening my eyes.
So glad to contribute to “eye-opening”, Notes To Ponder! Indeed, one cannot stand idly by and allow the communist brat-pack get away with murder.
While it’s great that the letter was written by Croatian World Congress secretary, reading this article brings home the truth that the Social Democrats, the former communists do not care about the diaspora, why else would a letter need to be written by people on advisory body to the government from the diaspora? To me it looks as if the Reds in power in Croatia made a token gesture so to appear to want good relations with the diaspora but in reality simply do not embrace the relationship. Why, would they – one sees through the lines – it is from the diaspora that the conscience of fairness towards all victims comes and it will not let go of pursuit for justice for victims of communist crimes.
Get out of the Red once and for all, Croatia – vote them out at every election!
You are on the same wavelength as I am, as many are, regarding that advisory body to the government from the diaspora. It is such a shame that such great opportunities are not used for positive achievements. The persons from the diaspora on that body seem genuine in their will to help but all that is wasted if the genuineness isn’t reciprocated.
Off topic because I don’t know about Croatian politics. But in terms of US and general world politics, Noam Chomsky emails me from time to time. I really like that. To me it’s like being an Athenian and getting to talk with Socrates.
Noam has a real knack for making people feel like they are personally important to him. Socrates, heh-heh, did that if one liked it or not. From what I understand about him, he’d zero in on someone until he finally had them cornered. But I think I’d have been like Plato: someone Socrates didn’t have to corner to have a chat with. 🙂
Nice spot to be in, Donald 😀
Is there any doubt as to who SDP are and what they stand for? They admit that they are the continuation of the Communist Party of Croatia; they are proud of that; so why is anyone appalled when they behave as Communists? Of course, they will go to Jasenovac rather than Bleiburg or Vukovar because that is where they belong. But at least with them – you know what to expect. They pose no real danger. Yes, they are liars and cheaters, embezzlers and money- hungry thieves but Croatia has survived similar despicable characters through various administrations since 1990 and survived, this is nothing new. The real danger lies from those ‘former’ communists who never rid the government of its ‘former’ communists. Those wolves in sheep’s clothing whose fat paychecks rely on the failing or short memories of those they are trying to gull into believing they are true patriots. We have got to be the only country who in its first free and democratic elections not only elected as its first President a ‘former’ Communist a ‘former’ General & Brother in Arms of Tito, but also allowed its ‘former’ communists who held key positions in the govt. to continue to hold on to power throughout a war waged against it by the Communist Army(JNA)and the Serbs! And so on to the present – apparently never the right time to address the issue of ‘former’ communists answering for their crimes.
Lustration, a big broom and a leader with clean hands and the determination to see justice done, is the first step towards a better future.
Velebit – I am not surprised at the actions of former come current communists (saddened and annoyed – yes) , I just want to make sure they remain visible for that big broom you refer to 😀 Cheers
Dear Ina, you are right as usual. It is sad that we Croatians in the diaspora have to write to the foreign press and politicians to explain the truth about Jasenovac, before and after 1945, and about the exaggerated Serbian vicious propaganda. Personally I have written dozens of letters in the US in this regard, but I feel strongly that it would be far more important and effective when persons in Croatia’s high political offices and other prominent positions would let the facts about Jasenovac be clearly and truthfully presented to the world’s politicians and press.
Sadly, one could not expect this from the present Croatian government whose president openly said that the red star always meant to him peace and love(!!!) and how he would turn Croatia red. He is certainly succeeding!
True, Hilda Marija Foley! But the important thing is that there is resistance to his red, which, I trust, will win in the end.
Astounding post.Wishing your Croatia peace and prosperity .Jalal
Cheers, Jalal, thank you
Reblogged this on Rise of The West.
Thank you for the reblog, Richard, much appreciuated
😉
Hi! I am back among the blogging sphere. I am omtatjuan! My new blog is yeseventhistoowillpas.wordpress.com
Greetings, Juan – nice to know you’
re back 🙂
Reblogged this on By the Mighty Mumford and commented:
A TOUGH ROW TO HOE—BREAKING OUT FROM THE VESTED INTERESTS WHO WOULD AVOID THE LOSS OF A MYTH USEFUL TO THEM.