Jasenovac camp – Croatia, the War, and the Future

Servicing Serbia’s Propaganda Israel’s Gideon Greif Abuses Holocaust And Fabricates Parts Of Croatia’s History

May 21, 2022 by inavukic 3 Comments

For years now I have been writing articles regarding the monstrous pursuits of Israel’s historians such as Efraim Zuroff and Gideon Greif that blacken Croatia and Croatians during World War Two. Suffice to say both are and have been on Serbia’s propaganda train against Croatia, maybe even its payroll, while attempting to cover up the fact that WWII Serbia was one of the first European countries to declare itself “Free of Jews” or “Judenfrei” having exterminated some 94% of its Jews to May 1942! Efraim Zuroff of Simon Wiesenthal Centre had appeared staunchly pro-communist, defending the atrocious communist crimes, or ignoring them for years and, yet, in victim numbers they counted many many more victims than the Holocaust itself! The numbers of people they claimed, together with Serbia, that perished in Croatian camps during World War Two, without a shred of evidence but with lots of hatred of Croats and Independent Croatia, are monstrous and abominable. And so I was truly happy at reading a recent article (11 May 2022) in Israels’ Haaretz.com portal by its highly-acclaimed journalist Sam Sokol on these matters of Holocaust abuse and fabrications of history by Gideon Greif, which I too pass onto you readers and followers of my blog articles. It is great article in support of the truth we all seek to cast out eyes upon sooner or later.

“Six months ago, Prof. Gideon Greif was on top of the world.

A respected Holocaust scholar, he was set to receive Germany’s highest civilian honor for his research on the Sonderkommandos, Jewish prisoners who were forced to dispose of bodies at the Nazi death camps. Years earlier his research was adapted into an award-winning feature film, ‘Son of Saul.’

But the civilian honor in Germany was soon rescinded amid allegations that Greif was a genocide denier who tried to whitewash the murder of 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces at Srebrenica in July 1995.

Now the 71-year-old scholar, who this year announced plans to revise a controversial war crimes report he co-wrote on behalf of Serb nationalists, again faces allegations of sacrificing historical accuracy to bolster a nationalist narrative.

He allegedly has inflated the death toll at Jasenovac, a Croatian death camp where, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the German-allied Ustasha regime murdered between 77,000 and 99,000 people during the Holocaust.

The controversy relates to Greif’s cooperation with the Serbian government to produce an exhibit, and later a book, about Jasenovac. According to Greif, at least 700,000 people died at the camp, a figure repudiated by contemporary scholars and promoted by Serbian nationalists.

Both the exhibit and the book followed a number of cooperation agreements brokered by the Serbian Foreign Ministry and signed by Greif in 2016 and 2017 on behalf of two groups he was affiliated with, the International Group of Experts GH7-Stop Revisionism and Shem Olam, an Israeli Holocaust education and research institute. The Serbian signatories included civil society groups and the country’s Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development.

The result was a 2018 UN exhibit about Jasenovac curated by Greif and sponsored by the Serbian Foreign Ministry. It was soon followed by the 700-plus page book ‘Jasenovac: Auschwitz of the Balkans,’ where Greif said his efforts were part of a ‘Serbian-Jewish bastion against revisionism.’

In the book, Greif credited an Israeli Foreign Ministry official for his first meeting with the Serbs and stated that the Israeli ambassador to Belgrade was present when he signed a memorandum of understanding with Belgrade on behalf of Shem Olam.

Greif wrote that the Croat Ustashas even surpassed the German Nazis in their wickedness and in their bloodlust, juxtaposing statistics about Auschwitz and Jasenovac on facing pages and highlighting various death toll estimates in a way appearing to equate the two camps.

He also quoted estimates that the death toll at Jasenovac, where the majority of victims were ethnic Serbs, could be as high as 1.4 million, exceeding even Auschwitz, though the number he has promoted in a raft of media appearances is significantly lower.

‘I would say that the minimum number is 700,000 and maybe more,’ he said on Serbian television in 2019. ‘So this is the beginning number. Maybe about 800,000 Serbs, 40,000 Jews.’

But this estimate has been discredited by modern scholarship, said Yad Vashem historian Rob Rozett, who added that Greif’s estimate was based on inflated figures produced by the communist Yugoslav government following World War II.

The scholarly community, including Yad Vashem, ‘has rejected those numbers,’ and Greif’s conclusions ‘are way outside of what scholars consider to be legitimate discussion these days,’ Rozett said.

‘Serbian nationalist narrative’

Ernest Herzog, the World Jewish Congress’ Belgrade-born director of operations, recalled a visit by Greif in 2019 where the historian tried to win the Congress’ support for a Jasenovac event in Jerusalem. Herzog said he declined the offer because he believed that Greif only presented ‘the Serbian nationalist narrative.’

‘I wasn’t sure he was aware what he was getting into,’ Herzog said. ‘It’s not that I think he’s some kind of a crook, but I just think that he ended up on the wrong side of history when it comes to this because on Jasenovac he didn’t explore all the avenues and research, and completely dismissed all the work done in the ’80s and the ’90s.’

The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Efraim Zuroff, referred to as an expert in Greif’s book, had a different take.

Referring to honors Greif has received from Serbia – including the country’s Gold Medal of Merit in 2019 – Zuroff said that while he couldn’t identify Greif’s motives, ‘it seems clear he has been given rewards of different sorts and perhaps it’s those rewards that motivated him to produce the kind of goods that the people who gave him the rewards want to see.

The question is what are you willing to do to receive those awards,’ Zuroff said, adding that ‘it’s sad to see what happened to this person.’

For his part, Greif seemed aggrieved by the criticism against him, complaining in a statement to Haaretz about ‘vicious incitement’ and ‘terrorist-like pressure’ that he said included 23 death threats in recent years.

‘I do not know another historian in the whole world who lives in the shadow of death threats just because he expresses his own opinions,’ Greif wrote, adding that his research on Jasenovac was not part of the cooperation agreements he signed, which were ‘standard agreements for academic, educational, pedagogical and research cooperation.’

His books ‘were not funded by any Serbian government office, and no one but me had any influence on their content,’ he added. ‘I received no payment, not even one shekel, not even one euro, not even one dollar.’

Dismissing the 1.4-million-victim number as unrealistic, Greif said that ‘statistical issues like the number of victims concern me less, and are secondary to me, firstly because my attention is given to the world of the victim.’ He said he based his work on a number of works published decades ago by Yad Vashem, which he considered the ‘most reliable and well-established sources.’

He added: ‘I have no interest in reducing or increasing the number of murders at Jasenovac. I try to choose the most realistic and authentic data available to me.’

One source he mentioned was the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which he said put the death toll at Jasenovac at 500,000.

Emil Kerenji, a scholar at the museum, said that between 77,000 and 99,000 people were murdered at the Croatian camp, a number in line with an estimate by Ivo Pejakovic, the head of the Jasenovac memorial site in Croatia. He said his database currently contains the names of over 83,000 victims.

‘Dr. Greif didn’t make any research regarding the number of victims of Jasenovac camp. As far as I understand, he simply quoted estimation of 700,000 victims or more, which were the official numbers of victims during the period of Yugoslavia,’ Pejakovic wrote in an email.

‘So he disregarded all new research that was done in the last years and decades. There is no methodology or research to comment on.’

Ono Academic College, where Greif lectures on history, distanced itself from the controversial scholar’s book on Jasenovac. It said in a statement that even though its logo appeared on the cover of Greif’s book, it had nothing to do with it.

An Israeli official, meanwhile, disputed Greif’s claim that the Foreign Ministry facilitated his cooperation agreements with Belgrade.

‘We have no recollection of ever putting him in touch with the Serbs,’ the official said.”

Ina Vukic

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Abuse of Holocaust, Croatia, Efraim Zuroff, Fabrcation of History, genocide denial, Godeon Greif, Holocaust, Independent State of Croatia, Jasenovac camp, Jew Free, Judenfrei, Sam Sokol, Serbia

Croatia: Seems The Jerusalem Post Prefers Ivo Goldstein’s Lies To Truth!

August 29, 2021 by inavukic 2 Comments

And so, of course I wrote to the Jerusalem Post Editor on 25 August 2021 alerting them to Ivo Goldstein’s lies presented to the public through the Jerusalem Post but, as could well be expected, the Jerusalem was not interested in correcting the lies to their readers, they appear more interested in expanding on them, or maintaining them.

Jerusalem Post preferred to publish an opinion piece written by the frequently obnoxious Efraim Zuroff, where he attacks WWII Croatia and, as per usual always tries to make WWII Serbia grand and fair even though it was one of the first countries in Europe that declared itself Jundnfrei/ Jew Free, by May to August 1942 when Serbs brought to slaughter and extermination 94% of its Jews. Zuroff and the likes will keep telling you that it was not the Serbs who exterminated these Jews, that it was the German occupiers, and yet the absolute fact is that the German occupying forces did not know who was Jewish, and who was not! It was the Serbian Milan Nedic Government who knew who the Jews were!

And Zuroff will tell you that he “was very well acquainted with the horrors of the camp (Jasenovac), since I had been very actively involved more than two decades ago, in facilitating the extradition from Argentina and prosecution in Zagreb of Dinko Šakic, one of its commanders…”, but Efraim Zuroff will not tell you that in his said work hunting WWII Nazis and their alleged collaborators he followed religiously, at least victim number of stories and manner of deaths, the fabricated stories concocted by the communists and Serbs. And Zuroff will call anyone a revisionist if their researched truth points to the lies and distortions of WWII reality peddled to the world since 1945 by Yugoslav and Serb communists but also by those like he himself. He will shower Ivo Goldstein with praises and yet the lies Ivo Goldstein has come out with are absolutely depraved and not fit for human consumption as far as I am concerned.

And so, on 25 August 2021 I sent this letter to the Editor of the Jerusalem Post believing they would want to correct the lie Ivo Goldstein had written and they published:

“…Then, I also refer to the Editorial ‘Don’t hijack the Holocaust’, published 22 August 2021 in which the public is told: ‘Last week The Jerusalem Post published in these pages an opinion piece which unfortunately failed to go through a sufficient vetting system. We sincerely regret this error. The oped, written by an Australian under the name of David Goldman, was titled: ‘This disgraceful mocking of the Holocaust needs to stop now.’ In it, he ridiculed and belittled Croatian Holocaust scholar Dr. Ivo Goldstein. Dr. Goldstein was given the right of reply which appeared in yesterday’s Post opinion pages under the title ‘A collage of lies.’

As a Jerusalem Post reader and a member of the public who has been served lies by Ivo Goldstein’s above article, I write this with the understanding that in my capacity as a reader for whom the article was meant, I have the right of reply. I do reside in Australia and have not met David Goldman. I wish to ask you to please publish this letter of feedback from me as like myself, I am certain that you, your newspaper the Jerusalem Post and your readers above all cherish the truth. When it comes to the Holocaust, the truth is particularly pertinent to a respectful memory of all who so tragically perished. Hence, I hereby draw your attention to the part of Ivo Goldstein’s reply to David Goldman’s article that is a blatant and evidently purposeful lie and most probably an attempt to fabricate or falsify history of Jasenovac, as if it already hasn’t had enough lies or half-truths said or written about it.

In the 12^th paragraph of the said article Ivo Goldstein writes: ‘In the TV show Sunday at 2, which is quoted by Goldman, I did not mention Hitler – this is another lie. I put forward a thesis that the corpses were also destroyed with a ‘bone crushing machine,’ which was used by the Nazis during the well-known ‘Aktion 1005’ cover-up. The Ustasha cooperated closely with the Nazis in various ways, and there are clear indications that they did so in this case as well.’

Ivo Goldstein did not put forth any thesis in that TV Show TV Show Sunday at 2 (June 20, 2018) as he tries to convince your readers and the public of his infallibility. Instead of a thesis in the article you published he categorically claimed the following as if it was proven fact instead of a product of his evidently twisted imagination: ( from 28min01 sec to 29 min 23 sec) ‘…On the other hand, already at the beginning of April 1945, just before the end of the war, the Ustashas, a large number of butchers from 1942., those who ordered mass crimes, were somewhere in late March early April 1945 after two years, two and a half years of absence from Jasenovac, because in 1942 there were the most crimes, 43. much less and 44., returned to Jasenovac Filipovic and Majstorovic, so the former Franciscan who was expelled from the Franciscan Order membership 41 and 42., knew best those graves, he went to Hebno so that the Nazis could instruct him how to destroy corpses, they even brought machines that destroy bones, and there were, therefore, in early April some 500 to 600 camp internees who worked on that destruction by systematic destruction of corpses. In one part they were burned on bars, and then the ashes would be returned to the graves, in the other part the bones they found or excavated were destroyed in these machines.’

These Ivo Goldstein’s gruesome fantasies about bone-crushing machines in Jasenovac camp area and systematic destruction of corpses by some 600 camp detainees working in unison on such depraved tasks, dressed up in categorical claims without a shred of evidence, and not theses, can be checked and validated by watching the relevant Youtube video of the said TV Show and the link is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhNp1iGKFsk

Hence, as far as this is concerned Goldstein did not write the truth in the article you published. That is, he did not offer a thesis about Jasenovac on television, he offered a categorical claim about bone-crushing-machines without offering any verifiable evidence.

Suffice to say that Ivo Goldstein had had an another attempt of placing this gruesome fantasy about the World War Two Jasenovac camp and that was in May 2018 when Magazine Globus published an interview with him, three months before the above TV Show, and both events were about his coming book, which, I’m quite certain, does not mention any bone-crushing machines nor do any of his subsequent publications pursue the matter further.

Many believe, though, Ivo Goldstein has fabricated or embellished the story of bone-crushing machines to rely on it in his rather frequent claims that digging-up Jasenovac for forensic evidence would achieve nothing towards clarifying historical facts. It seems that inside Ivo Goldstein’s mind forensic science and DNA tracing are at the same level as they were in 1964 Yugoslavia (Goldstein is notorious for claiming that nothing could be found in 1964 because of wear and tear through time and, hence, nothing will be found today!). The fact that Ivo Goldstein comes out with these impossible, if not ridiculous, claims about the Holocaust does in fact suggest that there is, in fact, regretfully, mocking of the Holocaust in his ways.

Furthermore, since Ivo Goldstein in his article mentions the Australian Croatian community, of which I am a member, in a derogatory manner, mocking some of its members for ‘openly celebrating their Ustasha links’, I can assure you and your readers that no member of the Australian Croatian community, or any other community for that matter, has or would celebrate any links that are considered by the authorities a danger in any way for the Australian people or state or the world! I can assure you and your readers that the majority of Australian Croatians are a shiny example for humanity and what it means to endure decades of humiliation and vilification to survive and stay strong for the battle of achieving the independence of Croatia started during World War II. This is not a revisionist statement, as Ivo Goldstein or others who begrudge Croatia the freedom and independence from communist Yugoslavia it had achieved, might be tempted to claim, this is and was the truth. If people like Ivo Goldstein were as vocal about massive communist crimes perpetrated by Yugoslav communists, particularly post-WWII, as they are about Jasenovac, then perhaps there would be no mocking of the Holocaust, no need to fabricate numbers of victims at Jasenovac or bone-crushing machines because both the Holocaust and the Communist purges were abominable outcomes of hunger for political power and superiority.” Ina Vukic

Connected post article HERE.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Croatia, Efraim Zuroff, Ivo Goldstein, Jasenovac camp, Jerusalem Post, lies andt Holocaust

Croatia: Yugoslav Communists Lying About Croatian Independence Movements

April 17, 2021 by inavukic 6 Comments

Zoran Milanovic (L) Stjepan Mesic (R) Photos: Screenshots

You simply know that your country’s president is a devastating and appalling waste of space when it comes to honouring the people’s wish for independence from communist Yugoslavia and your people’s fight for that independence by the persons he chooses to represent him at various events, who are equally a waste of space. During the past week Croatia’s President Zoran Milanovic sent as his representative the former President of Croatia, the former President of communist Yugoslavia (Stjepan Mesic) to the commemoration of victims of the Danica camp in WWII Croatia (where communists and Serbs say 5,000 people perished but any history written by Yugoslav communists cannot be trusted, even though only one victim is one too many)! That message says a great deal. Milanovic knows that Stjepan Mesic is the leader of the pack when it comes to liars and that he was a war profiteer, scavenging away into his own pockets bundles of funds donated by the Croatian diaspora for humanitarian needs of victims of the 1990’s Serb aggression against Croatia and for defence of Croatia. Part of evidence for the latter has certainly surfaced in a civil court case in the city of Split between 2017 – 2019.

But despite the evidence and testimonies presented in that court that strongly indicate that Stjepan Mesic did engage in criminal activities of war-profiteering, none of that evidence or indications seem to have been referred to or directed to the office of public prosecutor by the court in Split. But then again, Croatia is no full democracy. It still protects communist thieves and liars that define Croatia on basis of corruption.

And so, Mesic said at Danica site last week: “I hope that the Ustasha movement will stop one day, and then it will stop if we remember these events which are facts, which cannot be changed, because in history only what happened, happened.”

Then he went on to say: “The state government should first of all stop financing those who falsify history, such as those who claim that the Jasenovac camp continued to function after 1945: This is a notorious lie.”

Had Mesic, forgetful of his own previous statements, not here labeled himself as a notorious liar, one might be tempted to believe him but it is terribly difficult to believe him when he, himself, is one of those leading people of former Yugoslavia who revealed to the world that Jasenovac camp did remain open after WWII ended and in there innocent Croatian people who fought for independent Croatia were murdered and exterminated at the hands of Yugoslav communists. Now he wants people who promote that fact to be cut off from financial help! He obviously forgets what he says from day to day. Not because of some problem with Alzheimer’s disease but because he is a person that will say and do anything in order to promote the criminal regime of former communist Yugoslavia, or, if circumstance so demands – “suck up” to the other political side for personal gain.

In 2017, Stjepan Mesic stated publicly: “Don’t be fooled, Jasenovac worked two years after the war. There are many Croats buried deep there. We will now ask for those graves to be dug up, and you will see that they are Home Guards and Ustashas. We will have to bring a world commission to see that. Tito knew that it was a forgery … in order to get bigger reparations. He was never in Jasenovac,” said Mesic, who called Jasenovac a labor camp, not a concentration camp as others have painted it.

If Croatia’s Stjepan Mesic, President Zoran Milanovic, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic – none of whom ever fought for Croatian independence and democracy but in one way or another fought against it, and still do, ensuring they hold well-paid positions they do not deserve nor have the skills to perform at successfully – think and say that Ustasha movement still exists in Croatia and its diaspora, they would in certain ways be right! Of course, the WWII Ustasha movement as per organised political force does not exist and it hasn’t existed for many decades as a formal movement since it was disbanded soon after WWII ended. What does exist today is the independence of Croatia ideology and “movement”, which, of course has, in that sense, close similarities to what the Ustasha movement was for Croatia during WWII. Independence from Yugoslavia. Mesic knows that and that is what bothers him as it does all his communist Yugoslavia “pals”! He has always worked towards running down and crushing the glory of Croatian people’s victory during 1990’s in succeeding to free themselves from the chains of communist Yugoslavia. When he became President in 2000, one of his first moves was to retire some 20 Generals of the Croatian Army and Croatian Defence Council – to cut them down, to cut down as much as he could the independence movement even though Croatia had already won its independence. But it still had a job to finish during peace time: to lustrate Croatia of communists in power.

Ah, someone might say: but WWII Ustasha movement had Racial laws in place and many victims were generated because of it! It did! But so did almost all other countries throughout the world at one stage or another. Just check the facts of 20^th century history, and before, you will find even today the remnants of such utterly depraved laws and practices; Camps, Reservations, stolen land, stolen generations, mass graves, “Whites Only”, … The world is full of destitution and dead bodies because of it. The important thing in my mind is that every era bought its own way of achieving national goals, and many were not pretty nor justifiable, but in the historical context they fit into the order things were done by all our ancestors. Not that this justifies historical deeds that ruined lives, but it does serve as a platform upon which we learn lessons of a better future.

What is happening in Croatia, though, is that former communist operatives are using examples of historical crimes, alleged crimes and fabricated crimes to cover up and bury the glorious efforts for independence and self-determination. They will not succeed if people at large have anything to do with it. WWII Croatia and its Ustasha movement fought for independence from Yugoslavia and in that the occupying German forces were a propping hand, however critical of that we may be; in 1990’s Croatian people fought for independence from Yugoslavia on their own. And that is the beauty of it. That is what communists like Stjepan Mesic are trying hard to dishonour. They will not succeed. The word Ustasha in essence means “rise against oppression”. Stjepan Mesic doesn’t like that. Well, tough luck for that decrepit man of “politics”, the movement of rising against the very idea of Yugoslavia is here to stay. Even in peace time. Why? Because it was oppression itself, it was criminal and murderous, it was garbage! It only served best those in Communist Party positions, the rest just lived day by day or fled out of that existential misery. It is to be hoped that Croatia will not end up like Yugoslavia even if there are no serious signs of lustration on the horizon yet to stop such misfortune. Lustrating former communists in authority or high positions within former Yugoslavia would, of course, be the ideal answer to all the problems afflicting Croatia negatively on the path of full democracy. Failing that there is always the heart that cries out for independence and truth to rely upon. Ina Vukic