Croatia: New Fact-finding Research Into WWII Jasenovac Camp Absolutely Essential

(R) Ivo Goldstein (L) Aleksandar Stankovic
Photo: Screenshot

Lies loom large over some historian’s craft. Whether some accounts of history are outright lies or details which have not been proven with evidence presented as fact – they are all lies. And yet, to our dismay, deception hasn’t really figured as a category of historical analysis.

Attempts at new fact-finding research into historical events particularly those dealing with the Holocaust or WWII have been labelled “historical revisionism” with negative or undesirable connotations. This of course has been done on purpose, in Croatia by former Yugoslav communists, to thwart any possible revelation of truth, which does not agree with the myth about the WWII Independent State of Croatia they’ve been peddling since 1945. While doing that, they managed to keep horrendous communist crimes relatively hidden but definitely un-prosecuted and un-condemned.

The term historical revisionism refers to and identifies the re-interpretation of the historical record and, therefore, any investigation that leads to the finding of new facts that are not on record is simply not historical revisionism in that sense. It is correction of mistakes or misrepresentations found in historical records.

When you have a former Yugoslav communist and today’s Yugoslav communist sympathiser (who hangs on his office wall the portrait of Josip Broz Tito, former Yugoslavia’s leader and one classed among top ten mass murderers in history of the world) as a historian, as Ivo Goldstein is in Croatia, you get a deadly formula fighting against the surfacing historical truth.

On Sunday 17 June Ivo Goldstein appeared on a Croatian TV show “Sunday at 2” (Nedjeljom u 2) and the topic was WWII Jasenovac camp. While much of the show referred to a new book on Jasenovac Goldstein is reportedly preparing to publish later this year, one does not need to dig deep to find the real motive behind this TV show’s agenda. Generally it’s the increased efforts into scientific research into the WWII Jasenovac camp, both about its factual nature and numbers of victims (about which the communist Yugoslavia together with Serbian propagandist armada have perpetuated the myth of more than 700,000 victims even though 1960’s research had come up with some 83,000) that get the communist blood pumping. Specifically, the recently published book in Croatia “Jasenovac – Work Camp” by Igor Vukic, which brings forth new facts uncovered through research that seriously shake the very ground the communist myth built its historical deception about Croatia and Croats during WWII, has got the communist sympathisers, including Aleksandar Stankovic, “Sunday at 2” anchor, running for agendas that would keep the communist myth about Jasenovac camp afloat.

And so, Ivo Goldstein tells the TV audience that “the whole story of Ustashas, Bleiburg (mass communist crimes against Croats May 1945), and historical revisionism that flourishes around us has been imposed upon Croatia and Croatian society in order to deal with it, so that somewhere around the corner a backward, closed, conservative and anti-immigration ideology and its implementation politics could be promoted.”

“It is a conflict between two Croatias – one is open, the other is closed, one is the ones that hates and the other is the one that wants communication,” Goldstein said, adding, “the public is bombarded with a series of lies”. Of course, he wasn’t referring to communist lies, which he himself has been peddling for quite some time. He kept pontificating about today’s historical revisionism associated with the WWII Ustasha regime in Croatia.

Since Goldstein considers himself to be a scientist, a historian, it is utterly telling of his unprofessional biases when he gave neither credence nor credibility to any new fact-finding research into WWII events or Jasenovac. In fact, he was adamant that new research and digging of grave sites around Jasenovac would not result into any new findings regarding the victims, because, he claims that the 1960’s research had found yellowish soil there that reminded of ash from burned bones! In fact, he called those who today dispute the historically recorded volume of suffering at WWII Jasenovac camp – stinkers!

While he said the 700,000 victims of WWII Jasenovac was a myth orchestrated and promoted by Serbs his efforts in no way go towards breaking that myth, a true and credible historian in that field of science should. When asked whether his new book will bring anything new he said no, nothing except psychological profiling of “Ustasha criminals” at WWII Jasenovac camp!

As I said at the beginning of this article: lies loom large over some historian’s craft.

In desperate attempts to maintain the communist myth about WWII Jasenovac camp, in a desperate attempt to mar and damage in people’s minds, at least, any new research findings that go towards breaking that myth, Goldstein is now steering into psychological profiling of people (Ustashas) who were at Jasenovac camp more than 70 years ago and are long dead and so are those who might have known them!

It is a scientific and practical fact that psychological profiling is still an inexact method of portraying perpetrators of crimes, even now. But the term has been used to amplify and give added credibility to criminal investigations. Goldstein is most likely quite aware that by using those catchwords – “psychological profiling” – the public will take notice even more than what they would if presented with bare numbers or facts. One could go even further and say that by introducing the concept of psychological profiling into historical accounts of events, that may lack necessary evidential material for profiling, it makes any lies contained in those psychological profiles even more palpable to those who choose to believe the lies in the first instance. This is simply because the idea of “psychological profiling” has caught on among the general (voting in elections) public especially since “The Silence of the Lambs” movie and TV shows like “The Profiler”. But in reality there’s more to a criminal than just his/her actions that go into his/her psychological profile.

Ivo Goldstein is not satisfied with just keeping the communist myth about Jasenovac camp unchallenged when it comes to the number of victims, he is now entering into a new domain, psychological profiling, with only one obvious intent: to keep the myth alive by building into it his concoctions of individual profiles of people who are long dead and for whom there is little if any living corroboration about the character and possible mind of that individual!

Lying, fraud and deception were a particular qualification of those who wrote the “official” history of WWII Croatia, concentrating their efforts into making the Jasenovac camp as the worst Holocaust ground in Europe. Their followers such as Aleksandar Stankovic and Ivo Goldstein deserve every bit of contempt one can muster.

Shadows from the past do hover over contemporary Croatia but not for the agenda Goldstein claims – to Ustashise Croatia. They hover because historical truth does not exist; it has been concealed, manipulated and filled with half-truths and misinformation to suit the communist agenda. For that reason, research into the facts of Jasenovac camp is absolutely essential and Goldstein’s psychological profiling can be dumped into the same trash-bin as his books and publications so far have been by all who seek and demand the truth. Ina Vukic