After the Cold War, after the Berlin Wall crumbled in 1989, a new constellation of actors entered transnational European assemblies, organisations, and parliament. The newcomers’ interpretation of European history, which was based on the equivalence of the two ‘totalitarianisms’, Communism and Nazism – because they were subjected to both regimes and lived both at one time or another since World War Two began – directly challenged the prevailing Western European narrative, with no experience of living under a communist regime, that was constructed (by WWII victors including communist Stalin who had much horror to hide, i.e., Allies) on the uniqueness of the Holocaust as the epitome of evil. Regardless of such prevailing muscle that ripped away attention from perhaps worst crimes than the Holocaust was, communist crimes, if numbers of victims is any measure, the Nazi/Communist “Double Genocide” debate gained in significant momentum and speed for the past two decades, at least, and more vigorously so since 2010. The latter trajectory was prompted by a movement in Europe that believed and believes the crimes—morally, ethically—of Nazism and Communism are equal, and that those who don’t think they’re absolutely equal, are soft on Communism and condone its coverup of genocide while practicing double standards for justice to victims; all victims are not victims to them, just the ones who suffered by the hand pf their political opponents.
Indeed, in late 2010 the European Commission had rejected calls from Eastern Europe to introduce a so-called double genocide law that would criminalise the denial of crimes perpetrated by communist regimes; in the same way many EU countries on EU parliament recommendation ban the denial of the Holocaust. All sorts of excuses were dished out by the European Commission in its avoidance to place communist crimes on the same criminal list as Nazi ones during and post- World War Two. The most repugnant and hypocritical excuse, to my view, was the one that insisted that one cannot compare the people who built Auschwitz (Nazi Germany) with the people who liberated it (Russia). What an evil excuse this is when one looks the facts and truth in the face: Nazi Germany with its allies, who essentially became allies upon pressure of Nazi military occupation, left some 6 million victims while Soviet Communist Russia left over 30 million victims of the communist regime, around the same time! Similar ratios occurred everywhere in Europe where Nazi occupation took hold and communists ended up winning the war – many more victims of communist crimes than those of Nazi crimes (in Croatia the communists decided to label the latter as Ustashe crimes). But Russia was aligned with the Allies then, which was a most effective and strong way to cover up the crime of genocide over its people that was manifold higher in number than those of the Holocaust. If numbers do not count to define genocide, then certainly innocence of victims does, and both Holocaust and Communist Crimes are the grim reapers of same meaning and same gravity and same evil. Then the European Commission in 2010 also rambled on how Communists did not target minorities and Nazi’s did and, therefore Nazi and Communist crimes could not be equal! True, the communists did not target minorities just majorities – political opponents!
It was September 2019 when the European Parliament passed a resolution that equated communism with Nazism , and this led to a torrent of attacks by unhappy Communist Parties throughout Europe (e.g. Spain. Portugal, Greece, Italy). But of course, a resolution is not law, and it seems many more years will pass until that happens and denial of Communist Crimes will carry the same weight as Holocaust Denial has been for several years in many countries. But it is not just the Communist Parties that have vested interests in resisting full exposure of communist crimes and their terrible and terrifying toll of humanity because there are many historians of Jewish or other ethnic or religious extraction whose lifelong work appears to have been maintaining the rights of victims of the Holocaust and Nazi atrocities, always placing them in importance above victims of communism even though the latter were more numerous and perished by equally depraved, evil and cruel methods of slaughter.
These people have come up with the term of “revisionisms” to try and repel historical research and truth-finding post Cold War, when many formerly forbidden for access communist government archives had been made accessible, is tantamount to horrific pursuit of lies for personal gain in my eyes. It often strikes one to believe that those who hold the Holocaust as the greatest evil committed in mankind’s history would not like it one bit if communism turns out, on account of deserved recognition of its evil, to have been greater evil than imaginable, even by the Holocaust standards.
Croatia has a number of such historians whose families were staunch communist operatives, who evidently received many favours and privileges because of that political loyalty to communist Yugoslavia; who stretch the falsities of history so far that they are prepared to invent things, horrible things, in order to corroborate what they are inventing as absolute truth. E.g., Ivo Goldstein is one such historian who has been persistently trying to downplay and justify communist crimes, justify the unjustifiable, in former Yugoslavia and support the gross fabrication of numbers of victims of Croatia’s WWII Jasenovac camp, the so-called Nazi crimes also labelled as Ustasha crimes, by inventing in his mind a bone-crushing machine that was, according to him, brought to Croatian WWII concentration camp by the Nazi-allied Ustashe regime so as to hide the true number of bodies, victims (2018 Ivo Goldstein book “Jasenovac”) (Goldstein’s claim of bone-crushing machines in World War Two Jasenovac was subsequently debunked by, among other facts, lack of any forensic evidence that would corroborate their use there)! How twisted and mean-minded one can get! It would seem, the fact that almost 94% of Croatia’s voters voted YES at the independence from communist Yugoslavia referendum in May of 1991 means absolutely nothing today to historians like Ivo Goldstein. They are staunch communist Yugoslavs and seem not to be able to tolerate well the fact that Yugoslavia is no more, that Croatia is independent – that seeking the truth is no revisionism. They stop at nothing it seems, and even invent concepts such as neo-Ustashism even though Ustashas were disbanded as organisation soon after end of World War Two and new organisation under that name has not been registered or formed since. But to people like that, this too is not important because with the word Ustashi they mean Croatian patriots and they cannot stomach those much – they are in heart and mind communists. And they know well the atrocities committed under the communist flag. And evidently they don’t like that truth, of course; so, to avoid their families being implicated in having committed horrible crimes against their own people in order for communism to thrive unimpeded, it’s easier to carry on with lies?
On Monday, September 25, 2023, Ivo Goldstein’s latest book, “Historical Revisionism and Neo-Ustashism – Croatia 1989-2022”, was presented in Zagreb. The book is reputed to be the final part of a kind of trilogy about crimes of deeds and crimes of words (but of course, not the communist crimes), which includes his books “Jasenovac” and “Anti-Semitism in Croatia”.
The author of that book points out in his writing that by exposing the historical revisionism that has gripped Croatia for the last thirty years, not only historiography is being defended, but also democratic civilisation. There you have it! The man presents as a total fake when it comes to history and democracy. The man is evidently afraid that the truth of communist crimes is coming out bit by bit, and his effectively poison-pen tries very hard to stop historical fact-finding by labelling it revisionism. In the light of government archives being opened for research once communist Yugoslavia crumbled after the fall of Berlin Wall in 1989, there has been much research done into Croatia’s World War Two, and post it, history, and new mass graves, besides some 1700 of then already unearthed, that tell chilling tales about victims of communist crimes, are being discovered almost every month. One needs to look very hard, search with strong determination, to find references to these in Croatia’s left-faction-pro-communist mainstream media outputs. By calling legitimate and objective historical research revisionism Goldstein, it seems, wants to save democratic civilisation from the truth! Or rather, wants to wallow in the filthy history that was written by the criminal and cruel communist Yugoslavia regime, which included his late father Slavko.
It eludes both conviction and persuasion of a truly democratic and just person that someone like Ivo Goldstein could teach the world about democracy when he has spent his political and literary adult life keeping the flame of the totalitarian communist Yugoslavia regime alive, to this day!
At the book launch it was said that historical revisionism is first of all politics, that is, an attempt to gain political advantage through the manipulation of facts, that in Croatia it is most often associated with the Ustashism and NDH (WWII Independent State of Croatia) and named Franjo Tudjman as the most important progenitor of revisionism and neo-Ustashism (Neo-Nazism equivalent?)!
Historical revisionism in fact refers to any reinterpretation of recorded history. This fact may have eluded Goldstein and those practicing the “art of pointing fingers at revisionism that is not revisionism”. The fact is that the recorded history of Croatia (Yugoslavia) did not have records of communist crimes because these were hidden and forbidden for access even for research, and now that these have been available during the past three decades Goldstein calls the revealing of them historical revisionism instead of saying that they are correcting historical facts, or adding to historical facts, in order to reveal the truth. While allowing newly discovered evidence and facts to enter the historical record is undoubtedly correct and just, the interpretation of all facts to reflect contemporary morality then becomes a controversial aspect of the topic of revisionism. Many worry, rightly so, that historical facts, without having the benefit of all of them, are a distortion of history that must be corrected.
And so here we have it. Depravity and political prostitution has been the strongest at the expense of justice for victims of communist crimes! The history has recorded that almost 94% of Croatian eligible voters decided they want out of communism in 1991 and Franjo Tudjman led them to independence. But, Goldstein and his guests at the launch of his newest book, label him the progenitor of neo-Ustashism and not the progenitor of lasting Croatian freedom and democracy! Goldstein and his guests at this book launch, and generally, never acknowledge the fact that this historical revisionism they regurgitate about, did actually produce many admirable works of most credible research (including discovery of victims listed as having being slaughtered in Jasenovac camp by the Ustashe in Woorld War Two who in fact were killed elsewhere, some even by the communist hand… ) and books on historical truth they themselves should refer to when editing and correcting their books and writings into Second or Third Editions. But then, one cannot hold one’s breath until one sees such revised editions because to Goldstein and historians, who promote similar historical distortions, it would mean that they themselves are practicing revisionism of which they accuse truth-finders!
Perhaps we will see the day when, because of historians like Ivo Goldstein and numerous Communist Party operatives across the world, who paint truth about communist crimes into everything that it is not, the just world will deliver the long overdue laws that will outlaw denial of communist crimes just as there are ones that outlaw Holocaust denial. Wouldn’t that be pure justice, no politics involved, just facts! Perhaps we will see the day when Croatia will outlaw denial of communist crimes and the display of communist symbols in public. Ina Vukic
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