On Tuesday, October 28, a roundtable discussion entitled “A Scientific Approach to Researching the Victims of Jasenovac” was held on the Croatian Parliament premises, organised by the DOMiNO and Croatian Sovereignists’ Party Club of Representatives. Instead of respecting the presentation of the results of expert historical research on the facts of World War II, which communist Yugoslavia hid, twisted and evidently replaced with fake ones, the meeting was met with an explosion from the state opposition, especially the Social Democratic Party/SDP/ former League of Communists and the relatively new Možemo (WeCan) movement from the crazy side of the left political spectrum. To add fuel to the explosion of Holocaust denial allegations against the roundtable the leader of the Independent Serb Party in Croatia, Milorad Pupovac, announced a lawsuit against Igor Vukic, historical researcher of WWII Jasenovac Camp, alleging denial of crimes committed by the WWII Independent State of Croatia. Although the Parliament was formally only the host, i.e. it provided the room for use, and not a co-organiser, the event turned into a political and morality-questioning storm as if democracy itself was being tested. For those not familiar with the issue around WWII Jasenovac Camp, depending on which historian has written about it in the past in terms of the Holocaust, the numbers of victims that reportedly perished in that camp have varied between one million to some 20,000 and the official number registered at the camp memorial site is just over 83,000.

Critics from the right wing of politics didn’t like the roundtable meeting because, they said, it was organised by other than their own political party. The communist Yugoslavia apparatchiks have called the roundtable meeting revisionist, and even Holocaust-denying! However, when the “official” written history is a lie then reviewing facts from it cannot in all decency be called revisionist, in the negative or unwelcome sense of the word. Indeed, it cannot be Holocaust denying because the records of the Holocaust depend on true events from WWII, not on fabricated ones such as for instance the number of victims of Jasenovac. Croatia’s antifascists further claim that such research into history offends the victims of the Holocaust etc. But what offends the true victims, or the memory of them, the most, would be placing false victims or non-existent ones in the same circle as true victims.  Croatia’s leftists that oppose credible and professional research into history, such as the above, work hard at trying to block it. Some claim such research is not a process commensurate with a democracy! And is there a bigger slap in the face to democracy than trying to block paths that may lead to the truth!?

Given that the same Parliament had in July of this year established a Commission that would establish the destiny of victims of totalitarian regimes, given that since the early 1990’s when Croatia seceded from communist Yugoslavia more that 2000 mass graves filled with victims of communist crimes have been identified, given that scientific research since then had also demonstrated that the communists kept the WWII Jasenovac Camp open (where one of the killing fields of Croats existed as part of the post-war Way of the Cross murders) until about 1952, given that the official list (of around 83,000) of those killed in Jasenovac during the War had been proven beyond any doubt to have consisted of scores of people who died elsewhere, even years later, one would think that such a roundtable was not only welcome but desperately needed! But no, not in Croatia, which appears to be in the middle of a newly ignited ideological war fuelled by the leftists of communist Yugoslavia “family tree” who keep inventing WWII Ustashas and fascists that actually do not exist in this day and age.  The descendants of communists ging around like zombies, trying to block research into historical truths, must be very, very afraid of the truth of Jasenovac?

Given all the above, and more to the same effect, it cannot be said that such a roundtable is revisionist or Holocaust denying. Resisting the truth or efforts to arrive at it though, is a psychological and moral phenomenon where people deny or reject information that is contrary to their existing beliefs, desires, or worldview, often because accepting it would be painful or uncomfortable. People of faith can perhaps, at least at this stage of this war in Croatia take comfort in 2 Timothy 3:8-9 KJV

“Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was.”

Several members of the SDP who opposed the holding of the Tuesday’s roundtable meeting barged into the meeting room distributing photographs from WWII and insinuating that they are photos from WWII Jasenovac Camp. The egg on their faces after they were told that those photographs were photos from other areas, not Jasenovac, most pictures of crimes perpetrated by the partisans but ascribed to Ustashas, did not deter them in their obvious intent to stop research into historical facts. Although not related to Croatia, Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, Anne Frank’s stepsister, recently claimed that “Many pictures about the Russians liberating Auschwitz …are fakes... They took pictures, like you see now, but this is definitely not in Auschwitz and not the liberation of Auschwitz …”. Hence, while not denying the horror of the Holocaust at Auschwitz it is imperative that all its historical records and their details represent facts and that they contain not a single falsification. If they do contain falsifications, even a single photo falsified to my view this opens up a space to all sorts of speculation. Research is a best way to dispel speculation, I think.  Given Yugoslavia’s Josip Broz Tito was “joined at the hip” with Joseph Stalin one is hardly surprised that Tito’s apparatchiks of today keep dishing out photos faked to represent Ustashe crimes or crimes ascribed to the WWII Independent State of Croatia when, in fact those crimes have been proven to have been committed by the communist partisans. The mere fact that fakeness was inserted into historiography does not justify or minimise any crime perpetrated but it does beg research into truth.

Rejecting the false records of history does not mean rejecting the facts of history. But that’s not what Croatia’s communist Yugoslavia apparatchiks are telling us in this instance. They are telling us that the written history must not be disturbed or rectified because it deals with victims of Ustashes or fascists! It does not appear to them that the numbers of those victims have been wildly exaggerated. That there are multitudes of victims listed that were not victims at all. But it should matter because a true victims cannot be considered as the same as a false one. That would be sacrilege of human life. Hence, historical research such as the one for WWII Jasenovac is merely perhaps set to dimmish the number of victims magnified by communist Yugoslavia and the Greater Serbia lobby over the past decades. And that is the ultimate justice paid to true victims. Ina Vukic