Croatia: Die-Hard Communists Keep Distorting History, Denial of Communist Crimes Must be Criminalised

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  

Free PDF Book Download Now Available – Esther Gitman’s “When Courage Prevailed: The Rescue and Survival of Jews in the Independent State of Croatia 1941-1945”, Second Edition

In 2011, she published ‘When Courage Prevailed: The Rescue and Survival of Jews in the Independent State of Croatia 1941-1945’ on the rescue of Jews in Independent State of Croatia and about the role of Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac. In 2019 she received the prestigious (Croatian) Order of Duke Branimir, Honoray Doctorate from University of Split Croatia and published a book titled ‘Alojzije Stepinac – Pillar of Human Rights’.  

Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Diaspora and Homeland/HAZUDD and

Croatian World Congress associations have worked tirelessly in the past couple of years to bring out the Second Edition of Esther Gitman’s acclaimed with significant historiographic and historical values book “When Courage Prevailed: The Rescue and Survival of Jews in the Independent State of Croatia 1941 – 1945”.  

This book in its full version of Second Edition, in pdf format, is now available for download or online reading at this link: https://de.scribd.com/document/655273118/Esther-Gitman-When-Courage-Prevailed-2nd-Edition-2023-Open-Access  

In this book, against the terrible backdrop of Croatia’s fight for independence (from any form of Yugoslavia) during World War Two, the reader will find many clear and touching examples of how Croats, often with the knowledge and cooperation of the Ustashe regime’s officials, courageously subverted the government’s compliance with policies of occupying Nazi forces. For example, one of the things that made rescue possible was the designation by Ante Pavelic, the leader of the Ustashe and the Independent State of Croatia, that Jews whose professions were vital to Croatia’s national interest, and their families were termed ​“Honorary Aryans” and members of mixed marriages were also subsumed under this title. In relation to the now Blessed Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac the book takes the reader through various diplomatic correspondence, letters, and sermons.  Although Stepinac was convicted by the Communists, falsely accused of assisting the Ustashe in a highly political trial immediately after WWII, without the right to a defence, the facts of history researched and presented in this book justify Esther Gitman’s  portrayal of Stepinac as a courageous prelate who never forgot “his belief in moral law as a guiding principle”. She reminds the world that he believed there was only one race, the human race, and that he was the sort of man who requested that the eight Jewish priests and nuns in his diocese continue to wear the yellow Star of David despite an exemption as a sign of their “belonging to the people from which Our Saviour was born”. She provides irrefutable and factual historical documents that explain the conversion to Catholicism during those times of the Jews and the Orthodox who accepted the conversions; it was done at Stepinac’s instruction “in order to save human lives” with the explicit intent that they could “return to their church” when “this time of madness and savagery passes”.  

Dr Esther Gitman/ Photo: Ina Vukic

The Second Edition of this book, like the First one, will serve many a reader as an eye-opener to the history written by those who served the interests of communist Yugoslavia. This book shows us that many facts and truths about Croatia and Croats were, during post-WWII Yugoslavia, either covered up, twisted, or ignored on purpose. This book is a valuable reference and resource of a very important part of Croatian history that has worldwide reach and relevance. Ina Vukic        

Call M.M. when you want to smear Croatia

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

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