Independent State of Croatia – Croatia, the War, and the Future

Call M.M. when you want to smear Croatia

March 18, 2023 by inavukic 9 Comments

Written by Dr. Josip Stjepandic

Translated into English by Ina Vukic

The largest portion of the Croatian diaspora lives in Germany, which happens to be the largest country within the European Union. Almost half a million people with Croatian passports as well as several hundred thousand with Croatian ancestry who have received German citizenship and their descendants reside permanently in Germany. Croats are almost ideal immigrants: loyal, calm, hardworking, enterprising. Croats are known not to cause problems, the crime rate among them is low when compared to the rest of German population. It is no different in Croatia either. The crime rate in Croatia is the lowest in Europe and this becomes evident to the 3.3 million German tourists that visit Croatia regularly. The average German, therefore, does not have even the slightest of reasons to be suspicious of Croats as potential causers of unrest.

Croats in Germany are not only employees, but also entrepreneurs, especially in construction and gastronomy. Jure Vujcic has been running the restaurant “Marjan Grill” in Berlin since 1981. The restaurant is doing so well that you can only get a table by reservation. Adi Cerimagic, a Bosniak activist employed at ESI (European Stability Initiative), was among the restaurant’s numerous guests late last year. According to its own statement ESI advocates for democratic institutions and human rights. There is a justified suspicion that for ESI or employees thereof these ESI noble intentions do not apply to Croats; this is demonstrated by the ESI attitude towards the controversies in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where it openly advocates a pro-Bosniak and anti-Croatian position.

In his own words, Cerimagic warned the owner of the restaurant about the Croatian coat of arms on the front of the building. In his opinion, such a coat of arms is not permitted, because, he says, it is “Ustashe”, so it should be removed. The restaurant owner did not agree with that because it is a historical Croatian coat of arms that has been used continuously for over 500 years. Hence, no social group can have an exclusive right to it. Much like the Swiss cross. Cerimagic passed on his understanding of the coat of arms to Michael Martens, a correspondent of the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” (FAZ) newspaper for Southeast Europe, who proceeded to use it as a topic for one of his newspaper articles. Martens has a reputation of being a journalist of good quality and experienced who spent many years in Serbia (which harbours relentless enmities against Croats and Croatia) where he learned a lot of bad things about Croats and Croatia. Hence, in his occasional articles about Croatia, Martens mainly presents well-known Serbian stereotypes that are not anchored in facts nor have a foothold in facts.

Based on such attitudes, being a Croat is suspicious in itself, and if a larger group of Croats celebrates a sporting success together with their favourite singer, then it is absolutely reprehensible, even if there are no riots. Martens dismisses an argumentative reply as the work of a right-wing extremist.

Martens accepted Cerimagic’s recommendation and wrote an article entitled “Restaurant Review” (“Restaurantkritik”, 10.03.23), which is less of a restaurant review and more of a criticism of Croatian society and especially of Croats in Germany like Vujcic, who are supposedly pro-fascist and not even aware of it.

At the same time, Martens stays in the background with his judgment and gives the floor to university professors Ivo Goldstein (Zagreb), Florian Bieber (Graz) and Alexander Korb (Leicester), who seem to be competing against each other as to who will give a more severe criticism.

The essence of their criticism is that the Croatian red and white checkerboard coat of arms, which begins with the white field as the first field on the checkerboard, belongs exclusively to the Ustashas. The Ustashe were the military police formation in the World War Two Independent State of Croatia (NDH) created by Hitler in 1941 on the ruins of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, who established his government in it, which carried out his orders, such as the enforcement of racial laws.

The fact is that some Ustashas committed terrible crimes while others resisted committing crimes. This resulted in at least a quarter of the pre-war Jewish population being saved in the NDH even though Hitler’s strictest of orders were to exterminate them all. There are few such examples in Europe from the Second World War. There is a book about this based on archival material and authored by Esther Gitman: “When Courage Prevailed: The Rescue and Survival of Jews in the Independent State of Croatia 1941–1945”. I gifted Martens a copy of this book 4 years ago but it seems he hasn’t even read it. Meanwhile, almost no Jews survived in Serbia, which had a state administration similar to that of the NDH. Already in 1942, Serbia declared itself “judenfrei” (Jew free). Evidently, Martens does not care about this nor does this fact appear to interest him.

Goldstein comes from a hardline Yugoslav Communist family. There are several vanquishing reviews about his work, for example by Dr. Vladimir Geiger: “In his latest book ‚Jasenovac‘ Goldstein showed neither ‚good will‘ nor ‚common sense‘. On the contrary, he continues to lobotomise us by expressing everything but the willingness and ability to engage in scientific approach.”

When Goldstein says: “There is no doubt that anyone who today uses the checkerboard that begins with a white field declares himself a neo-Ustasha,” a serious analyst, such as Martens who is being portrayed as such, would have to interpret this as something like this: “Whoever uses a checkerboard that begins with a white field today shows himself to be a free-thinking man, who is not interested in the servings dished out by the Yugoslav communists”.

Goldstein is known to be a fan of the communist dictator Tito and he kept his portrait in his office while serving as the Croatian Ambassador to France in Paris from 2012. Despite being a supporter of one totalitarianism, as far as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper is concerned, he has become qualified enough to judge another totalitarianism!?

In a television interview in 2018, he claimed that in March 1945, for the purposes of hiding their crime the Ustashe received a special corpse crushing machine from Germany with which they grounded and crushed the corpses of their victims. That statement, which he did not repeat again, and whose accuracy could not be confirmed by anyone else, earned him the appropriate nickname “the Crusher”.

Florian Bieber, known among other things for having signed the so-called The Sarajevo declaration on a common language, according to which Serbian and Croatian are one and the same language, and therefore Croatian, one of the languages of the European Union (!), does not exist at all. Matica Hrvatska, the leading Croatian cultural organization, considers this Declaration to be linguistic violence. Bieber says:

“A coat of arms with a white field at the beginning indicates support for the Ustasha regime or are right-wing extremist groups. The use of a checkerboard with a white field is clearly associated with a right-wing extremist meaning.”

With this categorical statement professor Bieber shows all his superficiality and ignorance. Obviously, he has never had in his hands the 1974 Constitution of the SFRY (Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia) which prescribes a checkered coat of arms with an initial white field for the then Socialist Republic of Croatia, a component of Yugoslavia. Following his statement, Tito supported the Ustasha regime in the last years of his life.

Evidently unaware of its consequences, Alexander Korb, a Holocaust professor in Leicester, England, makes the most drastic, albeit true, statement:

“The use of symbolism is primarily a signal that the ‘Independent State of Croatia’ from 1941 to 1945 is considered a historically legitimate project.”

This is precisely the position that Martens persistently expresses, and it originates from Greater Serbia Serbs and Yugoslav communists: “Since Adolf Hitler in 1941, with his spontaneous decision, fulfilled the centuries-old dream of many generations of Croats and established a Croatian state, it, like Hitler, would have to disappear and remain permanently banned! All Croats must suffer for all eternity because a group of Croats abused the power that was suddenly granted to them by Hitler in April 1941.”

The checkered Croatian coat of arms originates from Austria in 1495. Although heralds claim that it should start with the first red field, which symbolises gold, which is more valuable than silver (white field), it seems quite natural that both variants are used simultaneously.

The coat of arms in question was used in all countries where Croats had some form of identity (Austria, Austria-Hungary, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Independent State of Croatia, SFR of Yugoslavia). There is also an opinion on this from the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Republic of Croatia, which Martens unfortunately failed to request it seems:

“The historic Croatian coat of arms with a red and white checkerboard has existed for centuries in both heraldic forms, with an initial red or white field at the top left. Both forms are used today in Croatia as symbols on buildings or in associations. From the point of view of the Republic of Croatia, this coat of arms cannot be viewed as an anti-constitutional symbol, because it, as a free-standing symbol without additions, refers to belonging to Croatian culture and identity, and in no way to the military formations of totalitarian regimes.”

Several books have been published about the Croatian checkered coat of arms, for example Dr. Mario Jareb’s 2022 book: “From Checkerboard to Tricolor: Development and Use of the Croatian Coat of Arms and Flag Throughout the Centuries”. If only Martens and his interlocutors had taken a brief look at it, an article like the one mentioned above would probably not have been written. Dr. Jareb himself writes in an article: “Coats of arms and flags without the Ustasha tendril are not NDH coats of arms and flags.” Therefore, the insinuation that the flag which contained the coat of arms with the initial white field, with which the then Croatian president Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic took a picture with a group of Croatian emigrants in 2016, is “Ustasha”, is baseless. By the way, during the Second World War, the Ustashe movement did not have its own flag at all, so there was never an Ustasha flag.”

In the end, the question remains open as to why the Government of the Republic of Croatia did not regulate the issue of the Croatian checkered coat of arms in an appropriate manner (at least with a decree). Considering that the Independent Democratic Serbian Party (SDSS), which emerged from the Serbian rebels, who terrorised the Croats during the 4 years of war in 1991-95, and today are trying to realise their war goals with peacetime means. The passive attitude of the Government is also represented in the parliamentary majority is not surprising, although it is by no means acceptable, and is absolutely reprehensible. As long as this is the case, further attacks on Croatian national symbols can be expected.

The combination of red and white squares can be found in many patterns in Croatia, especially in sports. Designer Boris Ljubicic created many applications on that basis. Among them is our logo, which according to the logic of Martens & Co, should also be banned, because it starts with the first white field.

The Croatian checkered coat of arms is so widespread among Croats around the world that some form of state protection of origin and authenticity would be necessary. Outbursts like this article in the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” are the best proof of that. It is fortunate that German readers do not read or believe articles like this one.

It is unfortunate that FAZ, once a very respectable newspaper, allows the publication of articles that exude the spirit of Greater Serbian, Yugoslav-Communist enviers and charlatans in line with the principle: “Call M.M. when you want to smear Croatia.”

dr. Josip Stjepandic

President of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Diaspora and Homeland

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Adi Cerimagic, Alexander Korb, Communist Yugoslavia, Croatia, Croatian Checkerbad, Croatian Coat of Arms, Florian BIeber, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Holocaust, Independent State of Croatia, Ivo Goldstein, Jew'Free Serbia, Josip Stjepandic, Jure Vujcic, Mario Jareb, Michael Martens, NDH, Ustashe

Croatia: Tough Nut Communist Mindset

February 19, 2023 by inavukic 18 Comments

_{Images from Left: Ursula von der Leyen, Josip Broz Tito, Matija Gubec, Tomislav Karamarko}

To my knowledge, which is relatively substantial by the way, nobody like the communists used and abused history to serve their own purposes for control and power. The European Parliament has become the arena where this culminates. This, one may say, is unsavoury but not surprising to a democratically minded individual since there are former communists or communist sympathisers from various EU member countries in high EUP and EC positions who are relatively unknown to the public and who held positions in countries that have in essence failed in providing for decent living of their people and were and are incapable of rooting out economic and political corruption that has plagued the countries they functioned in prior to rising to EUP or EC. Nevertheless, not every Member of Parliament wants to play historian but those that are “heard” most in public do!

I turn to the Facebook post, dated 14 February 2023, by Tomislav Karamarko, who among other high roles is former Deputy Prime Minister of Croatia (from January to June 2016) and former Minister of Internal Affairs of Croatia (October 2008 to December 2011), who strongly acted in efforts to prosecute communist crimes in former Yugoslavia, Croatia, and paid dearly for that with his distinguished and most promising career in politics and leadership in 2016. One can safely assume that lustration or at least a functional class of lustration would have been on his agenda for Croatia were he not cut down by the political machinery that wheeled and dealt communist mindset and actions.

“Ursula von der Leyen is the president of the European Commission and Ognian Zlatev is the head of the European Commission’s representative office in Croatia, so I dedicate this Facebook post to them and their consciences. I don’t expect anything from local Europeans anyway, because most of them have a conflict of interest in relation to the topic I’m initiating.

Namely, on February 10, 2023, slobodadalmacija.hr published an article entitled ‘Did you know that there are 28 places with squares and streets that proudly bear the name of Marshal Tito in Croatia.’

So much materialisation and concrete mention of JB Tito, one of the biggest criminals of the 20th century, communist dictator, and henchman…

Can you stoop any lower and poorer, my homeland?

On September 19, 2019, the European Parliament adopted a resolution called ‘The Importance of European Remembrance for the Future of Europe’, which condemned and equated Nazi and communist crimes, and calls on all EU member states to carry out a clear and principled review of the crimes and acts of aggression they committed. totalitarian communist regimes and the Nazi regime. The Resolution also expresses concern because ‘in the public spaces of some member states (parks, squares, streets, etc.) there are still monuments glorifying totalitarian regimes.’

Could it be any clearer?

That is why I am publicly asking Mrs. Ursula von der Leyen and Mr. Ognian Zlatev, since nothing has been done to date (in Croatia), what are they doing so that the resolution of the European Parliament entitled ‘The Importance of European Remembrance for the Future of Europe’ of September 19, 2019, is finally implemented in the Republic of Croatia.

Isn’t it time for this mental-communist contamination to end…”

But its not only in public spaces that the underhanded and mean operations of communist Yugoslavia still exist in Croatia. There is also no effort whatsoever to correct the wrongs committed even with national symbols or heroes of Croatian freedom fight that spotted many centuries.

450 years ago, the great Croatian–Slovene Peasant Revolt ended. On February 15, 1573, the uprising’s leader Matija Gubec was brutally, torturously executed in the main square of Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, which at the time was part of the Habsburg Empire. During centuries that followed, the Peasant Revolt of 1573 continued to serve as a beacon of hope for change for the better, inspiring numerous pro-freedom actions, initiatives and movements in the region and beyond. While the Croatians fighting for an independent Croatia during World War Two embraced, naturally, Matija Gubec as their idol who symbolised their plights for freedom from the installed oppressive Yugoslavia conglomerate since 1918, Yugoslav communists (who fought for Croatia to remain within a Yugoslavia and subservient to Serbs), pretending to be on a saving and liberating mission of Croats, had the gall to take the name of Matija Gubec for two of their fighting brigades in World War Two; one in Croatia and one in Slovenia! Given that Gubec was a symbol of fight for freedom in both Croatia and Slovenia the communists stole him from Croats as their idol in battle to continue the enslavement of both Croatia and Slovenia by Serb-leadership-saturated communist Yugoslavia!

Since Gubec was seen almost exclusively as a fighter for the Croatian state, the right to a state was denied by the communists, considered to be simply minions of Russia/Stalin to co-opt him as a symbol of a leftist revolution had cut bitter anger and resentment in Croatian patriots.

As communists in Yugoslavia, not Croatian independence fighters, won the Second World War their control over Matija Gubec legacy was tightened and they pursued further changes in the interpretation of symbolism Matija Gubec represented. Their interpretation of Gubec as a social revolutionary (not freedom fighter) became the only version, and the history of the Communist Party of Croatia as part of Yugoslavia was written with the 1573 rebellion as the beginnings of a revolutionary movement leading to the Partisan triumph in 1945. Gubec became a chapter in the Partisan myth, and in 1973, the 400^th anniversary of the peasant rebellion became an occasion not only to celebrate Gubec, but to reinforce the legitimacy of communist regime as (falsely) a people’s regime that liberated.

Looking back to 1990’s when Croatia fought to become independent from communist Yugoslavia, it is almost impossible to know the exact number of communists and former communists who favoured or opposed independence. Judging by what has developed politically and leadership-wise since year 2000 in Croatia it is, however, possible to know that many of those communists who did not oppose Croatia’s independence in 1990’s did so by hiding their greed for power and communist indoctrination at the time. Post 1991 independence referendum where almost 94% of Croatian voters voted favourably for secession from communist Yugoslavia it is widely believed that one third of Croatia’s communists favoured an independent Croatia, one third opposed it, and one third were undecided but went along with it. This stems from an estimate made by general elections results and various public statements, omissions to prosecute communist crimes and ongoing display of communist symbolism for which there is no legislative ban as there is for the WWII independence fighting Ustashe regime.

With the end of communism and the collapse of Yugoslavia, Gubec lost the political symbolism that had once inspired so-called revolutionaries to fight under his banner even outside Croatia. Under Croatia’s first democratically elected president, Franjo Tudjman, who was also from the Zagorje region, the cult of Gubec faded away. Gubec had essentially become a communist symbol and thus could not immediately be incorporated into the body of new (or renewed) political symbols that were required by an anti-communist and newly independent Croatia. In January 2004, the Zagorje district where the 1573 battle took place could not even raise enough money to fund anniversary activities to commemorate the event, which included a 3.5 kilometre walk from Gubec’s Linden Tree (where the peasant leaders allegedly met) to the site of the museum and a re-enactment of the trials of Franjo Tahy and Matija Gubec. Since then though the celebration of the anniversary of the uprising is done locally in Donja Stubica via a re-enactment of the unique and important battle and this year such celebration marked its 15th year.

_{Re-enactment of the 1573 Battle of Stubica, Peasant Revolt, Croatia (Photo: Screenshot)}

One may say indeed, if it weren’t for the former communists or their indoctrinated descendants in government and in the presidential office since year 2000 Matija Gubec would have long ago been rehabilitated to his rightful place in history – as a hero of freedom fights of and for Croatian people.

Thankfully, the memory of Matija Gubec has not died out, even if the localised celebrations by way of re-enactments of the Battle of Stubica and cruel death keep the remembrance away from the national level. Since the main goal of this 16^th century uprising was equality among human beings through the abolition of feudalism and an end to institutionalised corruption, including unreasonable taxation and abuse of women it has quite significant similarity with the Croatian fight for Independence during World War Two as well as the Croatian 1990’s Homeland War battles that ensued after most of the Croatian people were no longer willing to suffer oppression by Serb-led communists in power. It’s not an easy feat to return to its rightful glory that which has been desecrated by communists, such as the symbol of Gubec. Widespread corruption (and unwillingness to confront and disable it) and communist mindset are evidently too strong at the leadership of Croatia for things to change to better even within the next decade. But if eligible voters get smart enough, they could draw the start line for real change even as early as next year. Ina Vukic

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Battle of Stubica, communist crimes, communist mindset, communist symbols, Communist Yugoslavia, Croatia, Donja Stubica, Franjo Tudjman, Habsburg Empire, Importance of Remembrance for the Future of Europe, Independent State of Croatia, Josip Broz Tito, Ognian Zlatev., Peasant REvolt Sixteenth CEntury Croatia, Tomislav Karamarko, Ursula von der Leyen

Croatia: The Real Jasenovac

July 16, 2022 by inavukic 9 Comments

The need to resist falsifications of history in historical science of former Yugoslavia should and must be recognised by the Croatian government as a national problem and priority. The Croatian governments since year 2000 have failed consistently and, evidently purposefully, to recognise publicly and in their national strategy the need for corrective measures that would address historical misinformation and falsified Croatian history from World War Two. This need for corrective measures arose and persists given that falsifications have cruelly blackened the reputation of Croatian people worldwide and people and communities suffer because of that. It is a widely accepted fact that misinformation occurs when people hold incorrect factual beliefs and do so confidently. The problem, first conceptualised by the American political scientist James H. Kuklinski and colleagues in 2000, plagues political systems and is exceedingly difficult to correct. Over time, scholars have elaborated on the psychological origins of political misinformation and although there is an extensive body of research on how to correct misinformation, this literature is less coherent in its recommendations but, overall, scholarly research on political misinformation illustrates the many challenges inherent in representative democracy. And Croatia is no exception – relatively too many members of parliament are either former communists of Yugoslavia or their children who all, one may safely assume, either participated in falsification of Croatian WWII history or supported the falsifications.

It is regrettable that the Croatian government has not supported, nor does it support those whose research has taken them and takes them to uncovering the historical truth and correcting the misinformation sowed by Yugoslav communists and their supporters for decades throughout the world, often making the life of Croatian expats living in the diaspora a nightmare fuelled by lies, defamation and degradation spilling down from the communist agenda that relied on misinformation for its survival. Whether, therefore, Croatian powers that be hold that lying is a virtue, just as communists did, is a question that may not be difficult to answer even though the answer shocks every decent and truth-loving human being. The fact that no Croatian government since year 2000 has in any shape or form supported the research undertaken to uncover the terribly defiled truth of WWII Jasenovac camp, such as the most credible research including the ones carried out and completed by Stipo Pilic and Blanka Matkovic or Igor Vukic … speaks volumes of how very profoundly the Croatian governments have been and are saturated with communist ideology, mental set and cover-up of communist crimes including those perpetrated at Jasenovac camp post WWII by communist Yugoslavia. Perhaps a future government, different from the Croatian Democratic Union/HDZ or Social Democratic Party/SDP ones Croatia has had so far will have the courage to assist the passage of historical truth to the surface.

When people firmly hold beliefs that happen to be wrong, as is the case due to falsified history of WWII Croatia making it about victims of the Ustashi regime, grotesquely inflating the numbers of people that perished, instead of making it about the fight for freedom from oppressive and dictatorial, harsh Serb-led Kingdom of Yugoslavia, efforts to correct the misinformation will be and is met with resistance and this resistance is frequently labelled as “revisionism” in the negative sense even though revisionism is a positive concept as it seeks to correct the wrongs. The truth will out though, eventually, thanks to dedicated historians some of whom I have mentioned above. The myth and lies about Jasenovac will fall one day under the overwhelming weight of truth.

The latest addition to the above-mentioned research and pursuits of truth about WWII Jasenovac is a new book titled “The real Jasenovac” (Stvarni Jasenovac), written by Tomislav Vukovic, with the subtitle “documents and discussions”. The book brings more than 150 documents, photos, and facsimiles, many of them for the first time in public! The book was published by the Society for the Research of the Triple Jasenovac Camp, and it strongly adds to the increasing body of scientific and truth research works on the World War Two (WWII) concentration camp in Jasenovac, Croatia, aiming to correct the misinformation about the camp (and WWII Croatia) served to the world by Yugoslav communists and their friends.

From the back cover of the book we find that “the documents, photographs and reprints presented in this book show the real Jasenovac as opposed to the ideologised and exaggerated depiction of the camp as it prevailed in the period of communist socialist Yugoslavia. Such a distorted view has survived in some circles to this day in the independent Republic of Croatia. The author of the book is Tomislav Vukovic, a long-time journalist and the editor of the Zagreb Voice of the Council and a contributor to a number of other Croatian public media did what every historian dealing with this topic should do: he went to the Croatian State Archives and looked for documents about Jasenovac that were discussed in public. He found them, read them and photographed. On this basis, a newspaper feature in Glas Koncila was created, which was also the basis for this book. In addition to the documents, there are also a number of reviews and polemics with the advocates of the falsified and mythologised depiction of the camp in Jasenovac. The book is therefore a valuable contribution to the discussion of history the camp and the effort to present it in a realistic form…”

The book ‘Real Jasenovac’, authored by Tomislav Vukovic, is a continuation of Igor Vukic’s contribution to the elucidation of the ‘Jasenovac myth’. What particularly impresses is that the book was printed with financial assistance not from the Government or government agency but from the Canadian-based Croatian expat benefactor Dr. Ivan Hrvoic.

The book is full of valuable documents, photographs and sources of literature that can be checked and independently verified. The author of the book is well acquainted with the subject he is writing about, so the book is worth reading.

“WWII Independent State of Croatia/NDH and Jasenovac mythology”, which the world has been faced with for decades since WWII, are based on the fictional and malicious stories of how Croatia’s Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac personally slaughtered Serbian children in Jasenovac. Or that every fourth victim of ‘Jasenovac’ was a child, or that the Ustashas competed with each other who would kill more internees during the day, and many other ‘hunting stories’ designed and concocted to hide communist crimes.

Reading Vukovic’s book (based on documents) one learns that the Ustashas were not as the ‘anti-fascist’ (communist) literature describes them, and that the camps in ‘Jasenovac’ were treated better than in camps on other continents. Packages regularly arrived at the camp, work was done, crafts were studied, cultural events and sports competitions were held, etc.

Certainly, life in the camp was not a personal choice, and everyone who survived the camp or lost someone in it is rightfully outraged. But due to historical untruths, outright lies and fabrications, it is essential to rise above the personal level and look at the picture in a wider context.

In line of this Dr Ivica Tijardovic, Croatian scientist and publicist, put forth into the public domain recently that there are several questions that need to be answered when writing about or discussing the WWII Jasenovac camp.

First question: How many lives did “Jasenovac” save? In other words, those survivors would not have been so lucky in any other place.

Second question: How many criminals and how many political prisoners were imprisoned in the camp? It is known that many lawbreakers were taken to ‘Jasenovac’ to serve out their prison sentences.

Third question: How many inmates were released after serving their sentence or after being pardoned? The figures in this context from Vukovic’s book are astonishing.

Fourth question: How many inmates went to work in Germany or in real concentration camps somewhere in the north of Europe? It is also an interesting question worth investigating.

Fifth question: How many camp inmates were killed by the Ustasha, and how many by the partisans, i.e., ‘anti-fascists’ (Yugoslav communists)? Given that the Jasenovac camp, as we know it, remained operational after the arrival of the partisans in 1945; more research on this topic is more than welcome. Namely, in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, there were about eighty concentration camps with about 200 thousand internees a few years after the end of the Second World War.

Sixth question: Why was Croatian WWII history falsified, and there is still an unsuccessful attempt to hide the truth with which a growing number of people from Croatia and the world are becoming more and more familiar?

The only unequivocal answer to that question is the following. Given that the crimes against Croats after the end of the Second World War were so monstrous, with the ‘myth of Jasenovac’, thanks to the communist dictatorship, terrible atrocity in the long history of Croats was successfully hidden. The truth will out with all thanks to the several historians who pursue research, often at personal peril and cost, with view to present the truth of WWII Croatia history to the world and the financial and moral support they receive from the Croatian diaspora. Ina Vukic