concentration camps Serbia – Croatia, the War, and the Future

Auschwitz Of The Balkans Was In Serbia, Not Croatia!

Jews rounded up in Belgrade, Serbia 1941 Photo: National Archives Germany

Serbia continues playing a victim of WWII killings, it now shows a depraved desire to add Serbs killed in WWII to the Holocaust victim numbers even though it itself implemented the worst possible degree of the Holocaust – a state free of Jews! It mass murdered others during WWII, it perpetrated genocide and ethnic cleansing in 1990’s in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina! It still has “friends” around the world that will help it promote lies and half-truths in order to conceal its own crimes against humanity both historical and 20^th century ones.

Serbian Nazi fascists worked closely with German Nazi officials in making Belgrade the first ‘Judenfrei’ city of Europe by mid-1942. Serbian leader Milan Nedic made an official visit to Adolf Hitler on 19 September 1943, advancing the idea that Serbia is no place for Jews and thanking ‘Führer’ for his decision to exterminate Jewish people in Europe. And they did – between 90 and 94% of Serbia’s Jews were exterminated in various concentration camps across Serbia.

Adolf Hitler demanded of Ante Pavelic of Independent State of Croatia to make Croatia Jew-Free (Judenfrei) – Pavelic rejected and Croatia was never on the Jew-Free path even if it did have racial laws, as did almost every country in Europe then and beyond.

Gideon Greif, the author of the book “Jasenovac – the Auschwitz of the Balkans” evidently commissioned by Serbia’s government is just another link to the anti-Croatian propaganda chain coming out of Serbia, spreading around the world like a foul stench of hatred padded with Serbian nationalistic platform of Greater Serbia (examples from recent past of such propaganda include the Serbian exhibition January 2018 in New York ‘The Right Not to Forget’, then January 2021 the movies ‘Dara of Jasenovac’…)

It is yet another notch in the Serbian chain of attempts to include Serbs killed in WWII into the Holocaust numbers, into the very heart of the Holocaust, the extermination of Jews in which, by the way, Serbs participated to the point of achieving a Jew-Free Serbia by mid-1942! Like no other state of former Yugoslavia or indeed Eastern Europe!

Gideon Greif has no problems whatsoever publishing numbers of victims in WWII Jasenovac Camp in Croatia that not only have no foundation in truth, in factual research (he also may belong to those who will call any such research “revisionism” because such research would prove them as liars!), that are exaggerated to ludicrous and physically impossible numbers, that obviously serve only the Serb and communist Yugoslavia agenda, which was to place the blame of the Holocaust in former Yugoslavia upon Croatia so that the Yugoslav communists largely led by Serbs could say they “liberated” Croatia in 1945, even though he holds some positions of a University Professor around the world! Gideon Greif in his decision to call Jasenovac the “Auschwitz of the Balkans” does not concern himself with a thorough comparison of the numbers or percentages of Jews and others who actually perished in Jasenovac with the numbers or percentages of Jews and others who actually perished in the concentration camps of WWII Serbia or, if you like, concentration camps across Yugoslavia. Perhaps because he would have to conclude that Serbia, not Croatia, would take the lead in Jew-Free pursuits and the percentage of native Jews exterminated. Had Greif studied the entire Yugoslavia, without giving the fabricated numbers of victims any importance, he would realise that the “Auschwitz of the Balkans” was actually in Serbia and not Croatia. After all, Serbia with its numerous concentration camps was “proudly” Jew-Free and Croatia was not, nor did it want to be.

In this, Greif constantly refers to the WWII “so-called Independent State of Croatia” to presumably give himself some sort of justification (not that he appears as a person who seeks justification in these matters) for not addressing WWII Yugoslavia as a whole in his writings. However, the fact is that Croatia did declare itself independent in April 1941, but it was not fully internationally recognised as an independent or sovereign state. The reality was that a section of Croatian people fought for Croatian independence during WWII (and did not succeed) and a section of Croatian people, joined by the Serbs, fought to keep Croatia within the Yugoslav federation (and succeeded). Hence, when addressing the Holocaust in Croatia one must also address the Holocaust in Yugoslavia and all its States in order to give the history a deserved place in truth and facts.

Gideon Greif in this book panders to the Serbian pursuit of depravity whereby the Serbs constantly lie to the world that 500,000, or more, Serbs were murdered in WWII Jasenovac and pursue forcefully pinning Serbs to the Holocaust victims! There is no need to ask for verification or validation of those figures because there are none. None that are based on facts, just political imagination and political pursuits. The numbers of victims published via the Jasenovac Memorial Centre records is that 47627 Serbs perished there and 11,116 Jews perished etc. Nowhere near the numbers Greif is trying to push. Current research at hand and recent research into historical documents is beginning to show much lower numbers of victims at Jasenovac than above and much of that current work should see the light of day in publications within the coming couple of years, I believe.

Gideon Greif tells the world that from the information he received regarding numbers of victims in Jasenovac/Croatia during WWII the numbers climb around 1 million; he says about 800,000 Serbs, about 40,000 Jews…He does not say that the information he received is information from persons who used guesswork, estimates and exaggeration for political reasons, no facts that are verifiable in any objective shape or form for such numbers. He continues to recycle the numbers of Serbs reportedly killed in WWII Croatia, which have absolutely no foundation in facts and truth but have been put out there for decades by Serbs and Yugoslav communists who would put WWII Nazi Joseph Goebbels’ and his PR approach to shame: ““tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it…”.

So, the world and the truth about the Holocaust simply cannot afford to rely on Gideon Greif writings because his writings are selective when it comes to WWII Yugoslavia, use fabricated or estimated numbers of victims and are, therefore, politically charged.

Here is an excerpt of Holocaust survivor truth regarding Serbia and its attempts over past few years to rehabilitate the butcher of Serbian Jews during WWII – Prime Minister of WWII Serbia Milan Nedic.

Yahalom Kashny, 4 September 2010 “As a survivor of the Holocaust, I am increasingly agitated by Serbian revisionist propaganda on the internet.

The crimes of the Croatian Ustashas were terrible, but the Serbian Chetniks also collaborated with German Nazis in World War II. Serbia was a Nazi puppet state in World War II led by Milan Nedic, Serbian fascist collaborator.

The oppression of Jews in Serbia started before the arrival of Hitler’s occupying forces. Six months before the Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia, Serbia voluntarily passed the legislation restricting Jewish participation in the economy, education and employment. One year later, on 22 October 1941, anti-Semitic ‘Grand Anti-Masonic Exhibit’ was funded by Serbia’s capital city, Belgrade.

Serbian Nazi collaborators WWII with German soldiers in 1944 Photo: thegoldmanreport.org

Serbian Nazi fascists worked closely with German Nazi officials in making Belgrade the first “Judenfrei” city of Europe. Serbian leader Milan Nedic made an official visit to Adolf Hitler on 19 September 1943, advancing the idea that Serbia is no place for Jews and thanking ‘Führer’ for his decision to exterminate our people in Europe.

Throughout the War, the Serbian Chetnik movement remained almost completely inactive against the occupation forces, and increasingly collaborated with the Axis, losing its international recognition as the Yugoslav resistance force.

On 20 December 1941, the Serbian Chetnik army supreme commander, Draza Mihailovic, issued the ‘instructions’ to his units, outlining his mission to create ethnically pure Serbia and commit genocide against the non-Serbs, particularly Bosnian Muslims who in large numbers joined anti-fascist Partisans. According to Mihailovic’s instructions, Chetnik army’s objective is:

‘The creation of Greater Yugoslavia, and within it Greater Serbia, ethnically clean within the borders of Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Syrmia, Banat, and Bačka; The cleansing of all national minorities [including Jews] and anti-state elements from state territory; The creation of direct common borders between Serbia and Montenegro, as well as Serbia and Slovenia by cleansing the Bosniak population from Sandžak, and the Bosniak [Bosnian Muslim] and Croat populations from Bosnia and Herzegovina; The settlement of the areas cleansed of national minorities and anti-state elements by Serbs and Montenegrins (to be considered are poor, nationally patriotic, and honest families).’

With Adolf Hitler’s blessing, Serbian Nazi collaborators established the Serbian State Guard which comprised of around 20,000 Serb fascists, compared to the the 3,400 German police in Serbia. Their mission was to hunt down and kill Jews, Gypsies and other non-Serbs.

Milan Nedic’s second in command was Dimitrije Ljotic. Ljotic founded the Serbian Fascist Party and organized the Serbian SS Volunteers Corps which hunted down and killed Jews, Gypsies and Muslims. Serbian citizens received cash bounties for capturing or killing Jews.

Banjica concentration camp was primarily operated by Serb Nazis who took sadistic pleasure in killing Jews. The camp was created by converting barracks of the Serbian SS 18th infantry division. The funding for this conversion came not from Germans, but from the municipal budget of Belgrade.

Operation Halyard has often been cited as ‘evidence’ of the Chetniks’ continuing strong pro-Allied sympathies for rescuing as many as 500 downed Allied airmen. However, they did so because they were paid in gold for each rescue. Partisans and Ustashas also rescued Allied airmen, and they were also paid in gold. Having lost all Allied support to the Partisans (along with the recognition of the King Peter II), and with the Axis defeat in Europe a certainty, Serbian Nazi collaborator Draza Mihailović went to great lengths to regain Allied support and to portray himself in a favourable light. However, the Allies were aware that Mihailović’s troops were rescuing German and Ustaše aviators from the Partisans (as indicated in a Nedić government report of February 1944) and, on other occasions, even hunted down Allied aviators on behalf of the Axis occupation.

Serbian collaborationist forces during this period, sanctioned by the Serbian fascist government, also included the ZBOR party and Serbian Volunteer Corps led by Dimitrije Ljotić and the rogue Chetnik faction of Kosta Pećanac. Serbian Gestapo, officially known as the 1st Belgrade Special Combat detachment, was a special Serbian SS police unit which was established in World War II Serbia.

It was only after the withdrawal of the Germans and the overthrow of the Nedic regime in October 1944 that the Serbs in Serbia began to join the anti-fascist Partisans in large numbers. These new Partisans included tens of thousands of former Serbian Nazi collaborators responding to Tito’s promises of amnesty…

Instead of poisoning the internet with half-truths and outright lies, it is time for Serbia and the Serbs to face reality and acknowledge they collaborated with Nazis and committed a genocide over Jewish and Bosnian Muslim population in World War II. May your God forgive you, but Jewish people won’t.”

Haris Deutsch, a member of the Jewish Community of Belgrade said in October 2016 that the organisation would call witnesses to testify about Nedic’s active participation in the Holocaust at the ongoing rehabilitation hearings.

“About 90 percent of the Jewish population in Serbia was murdered while Nedic was in power and Belgrade was the first city in Europe to be declared free of Jews.

Rehabilitation would represent a devaluation of indisputable historical facts, and an insult to all the victims and survivors of the Holocaust,” Deutsch said.

Serbia and Yugoslav communists have been lying to the world since 1945 regarding the true facts of victims in WWII in Croatia and Serbia, ensuring that Croatia gets the bulk of the blame as a matter of their official “state” position. And they fabricated numbers of victims in Croatia to the level that would surely shock the world! Today, Croatia is experiencing an appalling lack of political and government will that would correct these wrongs perpetrated against WWII Croatia, against Croatian people. That sad reality is because former Yugoslav communists, former 1990’s Serb aggressor against Croatia sympathisers, are in positions of power and government. And then Croatia has some loud Jews such as Ognjen Kraus, president of Jewish community Zagreb, a former communist and today’s mental communist, who appears to be a special breed of Jew (perhaps even a pretend Jew), something like Greif may be – don’t touch Yugoslavia/Serbia just bash against Croatia! One thing is crystal clear: Ognjen Kraus to my knowledge, and it is quite large, has never ever publicly commented on or disputed the wild exaggerations of victims in Jasenovac, nor has he requested that the truth be established for all concentration camps in former WWII Yugoslavia. This would, I hold, be an absolute necessity were one truly concerned about all victims of the Holocaust. Ognjen Kraus, like many other Jewish public personalities, appear to use the Holocaust as a political tool for their personal advancement and not for asserting historical truth. It suits the communist political agenda to defend the murderous communist Yugoslavia and Serbia not to address WWII Yugoslavia as a whole but just focus on Croatia and keep churning scandalous lies and wild estimates rather than factual numbers of victims. Ognjen Kraus has been and is in that company. To see that Gideon Greif is evidently tugging this line of deceit with them, just as Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center does, is quite an eye-opener and, I trust, a motivational boost for those who seek and demand the truth via research of historical facts. Ina Vukic

Imminent Canonisation Of Croatia’s Aloysius Stepinac Sends Serbs Into Wanton Frenzy

Blessed Alojzije (Aloysius) Stepinac
Oil painting Croatian Church Chicago

It was in February 2014 when the relatively young organisation that calls itself “Third Serbia”, in Serbia, urged Serbia’s government and the Serbian Orthodox Church and all Serbs to write to the Vatican and protest against the imminent canonisation of Croatia’s WWII Archbishop Aloysius Stepinac.

This politically charged organisation, rehashing the WWII concentration camp at Jasenovac in Croatia said at the time: “After seven decades we now have the opportunity to stop the silence, prevent a new path of oblivion for the victims, new whitewashing of crimes, and stop a new international recognition of genocide… This is an opportunity for Pope Francis to do that which Stepinac did not do – condemn the Ustashi genocide…”.

The organisation Third Serbia is not about reconciling Serbian history as it says it is. On the contrary, it keeps on doing what Serbia and most Serbs have always done when it comes to WWII and crimes of genocide/Holocaust – focus on WWII Croatia rather than WWII Serbia in order to continue concealment of Serbia’s atrocious record as Nazi-collaborators and exterminators of the Jews.

Indeed, the research and fact finding mission about the Blessed Aloysius Stepinac undertaken by US based dr Esther Gitman during the past fifteen years, which absolutely exonerated Stepinac of crimes of the Holocaust and revealed him as WWII rescuer of the Jews, the Serbs and the Roma people, as righteous, is a real threat to a continued concealment of Serbia’s part in the Holocaust. No wonder the “Third Serbia” has mobilised or has attempted to mobilise protests to the Vatican against the canonisation of Aloysius Stepinac!

At the International Symposium Southeastern Europe 1918-1995 Prof. Ljubica Stefan (A Righteous Among Nations), speaking on anti-Semitism in WWII Serbia, summarized the truth as follows: “Until today, Serbia has worn a hero’s halo in a land of martyrs as a member of the anti-Hitler coalition and an alleged contributor to the victory in the Second World War. This is completely untrue. Serbia was not an unfortunate occupied land subjected to German terror. During the entire war, Serbia was the most faithful ally to the Third Reich on European territory under its domination. As opposed to all the other countries of the former Yugoslavia, there was no organized, and an even less massive, armed anti-Hitler movement. When England finally ceased supporting and exalting Draza Mihajlovic, even Radio London, according to the Serbian press, had Mr. Harrison direct the following warning: ‘It is up to the Serbs to brighten their reputation and cleanse their blemishes. Serbs, remember! The Greater Serbian hegemony will never return. The other nations in Yugoslavia have been exploited enough by the Serbs. You are being given one more opportunity to save yourselves. There has been enough dawdling and enjoyment on the part of the Serbs while other nations have been fighting’.

Until now, the Holocaust in Serbia has been an unspoken topic, a taboo. Jewish and Serbian sources offer relatively little data, mostly fragmented. What really happened, nevertheless, may be seen…
The physical liquidation of Serbian Jews began immediately in the spring of 1941. Almost all the men were killed by the autumn and the women and children and the remaining men were liquidated at the end of April and the beginning of May, 1942…It was not only the Germans who captured and killed the Jews in Serbia, rather it was the Serbian Police, Nedic’s volunteers and Chetniks. Most were killed in the Sajmiste and Banjica concentration camps. Not a single Jew managed to escape from the camps…
The majority of Serbian Jews were killed in the Sajmiste camp… The camp was formed on the left bank of the Sava by the railway bridge at the entrance into Belgrade where the pre-war trade fair was located. This is where the name Sajmiste originated. This territory which was, at that time, deserted, uninhabited and marshy, was several kilometers from Zemun and formed a part of NDH (Independent State of Croatia) territory, so the Germans asked for it to be given to them. It is, however, completely untrue that this was an (Croatian) Ustasha camp which Serbian propaganda claims even today. Not one Ustasha ever entered the camp…
As camp inmates starved and froze to death, they were transferred over the frozen Sava to Belgrade where they were buried. Many (the number is unknown) were led away to be shot by firing squads in Belgrade. They were killed in the same manner, in the same place and by the same people as were the Banjica prisoners. Some were killed by the Germans in a special gas truck on their way to Belgrade and buried in Jajinci but their number is not known. A Serbian company ‘Obnova’ purchased the clothes of those. Some were led away to camps in other countries (numbers and destination are unknown). When the number of imprisoned Jews began to decrease, Serbian prisoners and others began to arrive. One of these prisoners recalls: ‘The criminals were the same as those in Banjica. The commanders were also the same – Germans, Nedic’s men and other Serbian fascists’. According to some data, all Jews in that camp were liquidated before May 9, 1942. Belgrade had become ‘Judenfrei’…

Finally, how did the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) act during World War II? Not one word of condemnation of the genocide, the yellow bands, the concentration camps or the racism was ever heard from them. Immediately upon the arrival of the Germans, representatives of the Holy Synod paid homage to the German military commander and stated, first in print and then in person: ‘The Holy Orthodox Synod will loyally carry out the laws and commands of the occupying and territorial authorities and will, through its organs, endeavour to effect the complete abidance of order, peace and obedience.’ The synod remained loyal to their promise until the end and it never violated its promise given to the ‘father of Serbia’ General Milan Nedic that ‘the Serbian Orthodox Church will, in the spirit of St. Sava’s Orthodox tradition, continue to fight on his side’. There are no known cases of any Serbian Orthodox priest saving the life or attempting to save the life of one Jew, although some of them often openly expressed anti-Semitic attitudes in their sermons, instigating their congregation against Jews. Metropolitan Josif, as the head of the Serbian church during wartime, signed orders that Jews be forbidden to transfer to the Orthodox faith, even though this would have saved them. Three episcopates were the first to sign the ‘Appeal to the Serbian people’ of August 1941, in which over 500 of the intellectual elite of Serbia publicly expressed their support of the occupiers and quislings, which was a unique case in war-affected Europe…”

While the Serbian Orthodox Church signed orders that Jews be forbidden to transfer to the Orthodox faith, even though this would have saved them, Archbishop Aloysius Stepinac, as evidenced from Dr Esther Gitman’s factual research, sent memos to the parish priests in Croatia:
“When you are visited by people of the Jewish or Eastern Orthodox faith, whose lives are in danger and who express the wish to convert to Catholicism, accept them in order to save human lives. Do not require any special religious knowledge from them, because the Eastern Orthodox are Christians like ourselves, and the Jewish faith is the faith from which Christianity draws its roots. The role and duty of Christians is, in the first place to save people. When this time of madness and of savagery passes, those who would convert out of conviction will remain in our church, while the others, after the danger passes, will return to their church.”

Indeed, the canonisation of Croatia’s Aloysius Stepinac will serve justice to humanity for, among celebrating the good in people that existed despite the horrible adversities of WWII, it will also undoubtedly open up a new window into the WWII truth of Serbia – something that is desperately needed if reconciliation of history is to be fully achieved. The organisation Third Serbia has a great deal to fear, indeed. No wonder they protest Stepinac’s canonisation!

On 22 November 1941 a major anti-Masonic exhibition was opened in Belgrade, Serbia. It was widely promoted by the media. Exhibition was funded by city authorities, at proposal of Djordje Peric, Head of Serbian state propaganda. The Serbian press hyped up the message of the exhibit: “Jews deserved their fate, for interests of the Jewish internationalists never coincided with those of Serbs.”

Anti-Semitic Poster Serbia 1941
“Come and see
the anti-masonic exhibition.
The Jewish dream of being
the power of the world
is now disappearing
under the attack from
finally awakened nationalism.”

Anti-Semitic poster from WWII Serbia:
“The Jew is holding the strings.”
The anti-masonic exhibit – Belgrade 1941

The WWII anti-Semitic exhibition in the Museum of Yugoslav History in Belgrade had breathed a new life in 2012, albeit under the banner of “The Holocaust in Serbia” for the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The eerie atmosphere emanating from Serbs attending the exhibition cut a loathsome, painful repulsion in an observer: a sense of hovering derangement in which the Serbs looked upon these exhibits as if they were someone else’s work, not theirs! And still, the loudest of Serbian population continues to blame Germany for the horrors of the Holocaust in WWII Serbia. Just like with today’s organisation “Third Serbia” that selective memory, which attempts to erase the responsibility of Serbs loyal to Nazism, is palpable almost everywhere one looks or happens to stumble upon. Instead of truly reconciling history “Third Serbia” has, like all other like-organisations of Serbs, taken the well-worn route of anti-Croatian propaganda by rehashing WWII events in Croatia without any regard to the truth as far as Aloysius Stepinac is concerned, in this case! I hope that if letters of protest against Stepinac’s canonisation do arrive in Vatican from Serb sources they will bounce back to where they originated from with “Return To Sender” written in bold black ink on the envelope. Truth wins hands down every time, even if that does take a long time in many instances. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)