Jasenovac – Croatia, the War, and the Future

What is the Holocaust memory in Serbia: suffering of Jews in Serbia or in Croatia?

October 10, 2021 by inavukic 10 Comments

This letter had recently been offered for publication in The Times of Israel, but the editors decided not to publish it. However, it asks a relevant question (in the title) and offers several links to important articles which may be unknown to the readers interested in the subject of Serbian misuse of the Holocaust. So, we offer them here.

The letter

On July 12, 2021, in The Blogs section of The Times of Israel, Mr. Ronen Shnidman reported from the Belgrade meeting of remembrance of the last survivors of the WWII Jasenovac camp in Croatia. The report is entitled “Serbia’s Holocaust memory and the ties that bind us” (https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/serbias-holocaust-memory-and-the-ties-that-bind-us/). After reading the report I wondered what the “memory of Holocaust” in Serbia should have been: suffering of Jews in Serbia or in Croatia? Are the Serbs who perished in Jasenovac (Croatia) a part of the Holocaust victims, and if they are, are Croats and Roma also victims, as well as Poles and all other non-Jewish nations who perished in other concentration camps during the WW II? To answer these questions would perhaps be inappropriate from me as I am a Croat born after the WW II, and my ancestors had neither participated in the war nor perished in it, but Mr. Shnidman’s report indeed elicits several questions.

Starting “lightly”, Shnidman reports on the speech of Ms. Danijela Danon „Danon is the granddaughter of the Jasenovac victim Rabbi Daniel Isak Danon and delivered a speech at the Jasenovac Martyrs event held at the Serbian Academy of the Sciences and Arts.” If the family of Ms. Danon was from Serbia, how had Rabbi Danon ended up in Jasenovac, another state and hundreds of kilometers away? If they lived in Zagreb, capital of Croatia, how come that Ms. Danijela lives in Belgrade and talks – to the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts? Why didn’t she, or anybody else at the meeting, remember the letter that Philip J. Cohen, the American publicist of Jewish origin and former advisor to the UN in Bosnia and Hercegovina, addressed to rabbi Abraham Cooper at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre on February 27th, 1992, in which Cohen pointed out that antisemitism has been deeply ingrained into Serb history. He also unmasked the propaganda of ‘Greater Serbia’, which at the start of the nineties accused Croatia of fascism and antisemitism.

Shnidman wrote: “Some 57 different documented methods of death were employed at Jasenovac. These were used in the killing of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Serbs and tens of thousands of Jews, Roma and Croatian anti-fascists.” However, “the methods of death” have no forensic evidence found so far. The evidence so far found does not point to the claim that, many, „tens of thousands of Jews, Roma and Croatian anti-fascists” have been slaughtered in Jasenovac. Namely, Jasenovac is still a place wrapped in the fog of communist myths and lack of systematic investigation and, as such, a victim to Serbian anti-Croat propaganda.

Disputes apart, there are three things that are true and verifiable:

Three expert forensic investigations done at the sites in Jasenovac by the Yugoslav communist regime in 1964, indicated that allegedly most numerous mass graves contained a total of fewer than 500 skeletons of unknown origin.
The list of Jasenovac victims maintained by the Public Establishment Memorial Park Jasenovac (PEMP Jasenovac, approximately 84,000 names) has been unequivocally proven to have been made up (or fabricated) (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2012.11574.pdf): all lists of victims maintained by United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington were analyzed on the years of birth of listed victims, and only the Jasenovac one came out as statistically impossible.
iii) Yugoslavian censuses before and after WW II reveal that, in comparison to the pre-war data, the post-war number of Croats had decreased, and the number of Serbs increased.

The Museum of Genocide Victims in Belgrade claims almost the same number of victims as PEMP Jasenovac, but the full list has never been either compared or aligned; at the same time, Jasenovac Research Institute in New York speaks about 600,000 Jasenovac victims, and Dr. Gideon Greif (mentioned as an authority in Shnidman’s text) of 700,000. How is it possible to have such great discrepancies in the number of victims?

Recently, Australian analyst Mr. David Goldman published an article in the Jerusalem Post (JP) under the title “This disgraceful mocking of the Holocaust needs to stop immediately” (https://m.jpost.com/opinion/this-disgraceful-mocking-of-the-holocaust-needs-to-stop-now-676707/amp?__twitter_impression=true), saying that Serbia used lies about Jasenovac to position Serb sufferings during WW II under the Holocaust. The acting director of the Museum of Genocide Victims in Belgrade, Mr. Dejan Ristić, sent a protest letter to JP (https://www.jpost.com/opinion/shame-on-those-who-seek-to-revise-history-of-the-holocaust-opinion-676992), and the article by Goldman was withdrawn. Ristić vehemently attacked Goldman as a “revisionist”. The editors did not know, I suppose, that Dr. Ristić at the same time denied genocide committed by Serbian forces in Srebrenica in 1995, and called upon all Serbian scientists to intensify investigations to prove that the Srebrenica massacre (around 8,000 victims) was not a genocide (http://www1.srna.rs/novosti1/922650/ristic-u-srebrenici-nije-bilo-genocida–incko-pocinio-pravno-nasilje.htm).

Serbian strategy of copying the Holocaust of Jews for Serbian WW II victims has been recognized and criticised before Goldman’s JP’s article (which was taken down by the JP a few days after publishing it):

https://haifaholocauststudies.wordpress.com/2017/06/04/holocaust-discourse-as-a-screen-memory-the-serbian-case/; https://haifaholocauststudies.wordpress.com/tag/dr-lea-david/
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-02-04/review-dara-jasenovac-holocaust-drama-serbia
https://variety.com/author/jay-weissberg/
https://forward.com/culture/463544/dara-of-jasenovac-serbian-oscar-controversy-genocide-holocaust-croatia/?gamp&__twitter_impression=true
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/07/erasing_the_history_of_the_holocaust.html (David Goldman’s article on Serbian strategy to invade the Holocaust with its Jasenovac victims that has not been withdrawn).

Serbian abuse of history has been notified long ago (Christopher Bennett. How the Serbs Abuse History. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition [New York, N.Y] 7 May 1999: A18.; Philip J. Cohen. Serbia’s Secret War: Propaganda and the Deceit of History. College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press; 1996.). This abuse includes (mis)use of the Holocaust, which is outrageous! Philip Cohen rightfully called it desacralization of the Holocaust (Cohen, Philip J. 1993. Desecrating the Holocaust: Serbia’s Exploitation of the Holocaust as Propaganda. Philip J. Cohen.). I am afraid that Shnidman, Ristić and Greif, intentionally or not, support and/or follow that Serbian strategy. Mr. Shnidman’s report in The Times of Israel on Belgrade meeting “Serbia’s Holocaust memory and the ties that bind us” is in line both with abuse of history and desacralization of the Holocaust, in one sentence – “Serbian anti-Semitism, historical revisionism and exploitation of Holocaust as propaganda”, as P.J. Cohen spelled it out in 1992. If anybody would think that this is too harsh a judgement, I would like to see a milder one.

Matko Marušić

Split, Croatia, October 2021

About Matko Marušić: born in Split, Croatia, in 1946; he is Professor Emeritus at the University of Split, Split, Croatia. He was a Professor at Medical Schools (in Zagreb and Split) in courses of Physiology, Immunology, Principles of Research in Medicine, and of Research Methodology at postgraduate programs.He published 190 articles in scientific journals cited in Web of Science (H-index=28) and has around 150 publications including articles in scientific journals, books, book chapters, and a number of polemics and educational texts. He was a president of the Croatian Association of Physiologists, founder and Co-Editor-in-Chief of Croatian Medical Journal (1991-2009), Associate Dean of Zagreb University School of Medicine for School Branches in Osijek and Split, and Dean of the University of Split School of Medicine. He was one of the organisers and leaders of the humanitarian action ‘White Road for Nova Bila and Silver Bosnia’ (1993/94). He published many short stories and a collection of children stories ‘Snijeg u Splitu’ (The Snow in the City of Split) and ‘Plaču li anđeli’ (Do Angels Cry?). He also published the book of essays ‘Živjeti u Župi Radobilji’ (Living in the Radobilja Parish) and humoristic books ‘Škola plivanja’ (Swimming lessons), ‘Medicina iznutra’ (Medicine from Inside), and ‘Life of an Editor’. In 2018 he published his biggest literally work ‘Mi Hrvati’ (We Croats). (Brief biography and photo from University of Split website, October 2021)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Anti-Semitism in Serbia, Croatia, David Goldman, Greater Serbia politics, Holocaust, Holocaust in Serbia, Jasenovac, Matko Marusic, MatkoMarušić, Philip J. Cohen, Ronen Shnidman. Times of Israel, Serbia

Mocking And Distortion Of Holocaust Truth Unjustly Vilify Croatia

September 12, 2021 by inavukic Leave a Comment

The pursuit of the truth is the ultimate goal to honour, and this includes the historical truth and pursuits to correct its lies and fabrications inserted into the history by those who benefit from lies and fabrications. In Croatia’s case that is the former Yugoslav communists and their friends. I consider it very important to republish articles that form the continuance of reactions to the David Goldman’s article on mocking of the Holocaust first published in Jerusalem Post and then taken down, but subsequently republished by this blog portal.

When it comes to revising the truth of Croatia’s World War Two history, horribly twisted and fabricated by the Yugoslav communists and Serbs, then, I think, historical revisionism we hear of is actually the only path of truth and honour anyone could take.

According to sources Dr Robert Rozett, Senior Historian in the International Institute for Holocaust Research, Yad Vashem, had on 25 August 2021 written a statement letter to the Jerusalem Post, regarding the David Goldman article on mocking of the Holocaust, however, that letter, it seems, was not published by the Jereusalem Post. I understand from sources that the letter from Dr Robert Rozett was worded as follows:

“The article published in the Jerusalem Post entitled “This disgraceful mocking of the Holocaust needs to stop now” by David Goldman on Monday, 16 August 2021, puts forth a figure for the number of people murdered in the Jasenovac camp which is not only ridiculous, it plays into the hands of those who would like to whitewash the mass murder of primarily Serbs and Jews at the hands of the collaborationist Croatian Ustaše regime during World War II. The number of people murdered in Jasenovac by the Ustaše is still a matter for scholarly inquiry and discussion, but it is clear to reputable scholars that it is many times greater than the absurdly low figure of 4,500 thousand cited by Goldman, and many times less than the grossly inflated count of more than 800,000, that was widely touted in the Communist era and has been endorsed by Gideon Greif of late.

Yad Vashem continues to encourage ongoing research into the history of the camp by responsible and dedicated scholars and will continue to disseminate their findings to the general public through educational work, trustworthy publications and Yad Vashem’s digital platforms.

At a time when Holocaust distortion is a significant feature in public discourse, it is incumbent on us to ensure that facts and content published in the media be as accurate as possible, and based on reliable sources. Ignoring this basic responsibility plays into the hands of those who seek to intentionally mispresent the historical record.

Dr. Robert Rozett, Senior Historian
International Institute for Holocaust Research
Member of the Israeli Delegation to IHRA”

On 7 September 2021, David Goldman has via thegoldmanreport.org portal posted his rebuttal and response to the above reported statement letter by Dr Robert Rozett and the response is as follows:

“ 1. Despite insinuations by Yad Vashem that I wrote only 4500 people died at Jasenovac, any reasonable person reading my article would come to the conclusion that I said no such thing. In fact, I wrote: ‘…Yugoslavia’s forensic examination found that all up, between 2500 and 4500 were killed at the camp.’ In other words, what I said was all that Yugoslavia – the former Balkan country – could find as physical evidence was this range, and not what I think the actual death toll could or should be.

2. This was confirmed by the acting director of the Museum of Genocide Victims in Belgrade, Dejan Ristic who while claiming my piece was ‘extremely revisionist’, went on to write that there was a ‘1946 excavation’, that found ‘967 remains’ and then the ‘1964 excavation with a total of 284 victims’. All up, 1251 bodies were found in Jasenovac, according to Ristic. In other words, the person who labelled my article ‘extremely revisionist’, proposes as his own number of physically unearthed (by Yugoslavia) Jasenovac victims, a figure that is about three times lower than the 4500 or so found from scanning decades of Yugoslavian data.

3. The subject of my op-ed was that Jasenovac has been grossly manipulated for political purposes so much so that the figures quoted by all sides no longer make any logical sense whatsoever. Accordingly, Mr Ristic confirms this point, writing that no more human remains were found, but then goes on to admit, that despite all this, his museum increased the death toll by an extra 88,000-plus people. From where these extra nearly 90,000 people came from, he does not or will not say. That was one of the main points of my piece.

4. This manipulation of Jasenovac has become so endemic and egregious that not only does it denigrate the horror that was the WW2 Jewish Holocaust, but it also has more recent ramifications. For example, in the 1990s, Serb paramilitaries would regularly invoke this ‘memory’ of Jasenovac to justify their own war crimes at places like Srebrenica, Omarska and Vukovar.

5. The likes of Mr Ristic et al actively push a myth that seems to have also been swallowed hook, line and sinker by Yad Vashem, whereby they claim that no further excavations could have taken place in 1964 – a mere 19 years after the end of WW2 because, ‘the remains would have disintegrated by then.’ This in a country that regularly unearths complete skeletons of 2000-year old Roman soldiers, as happened not far from Jasenovac in 2017. Does Yad Vashem claim that Roman bones are far more durable than Slavic, or for that matter, Jewish ones?

6. The Yad Vashem press release also says: ‘…it is clear to reputable scholars that it is many times greater than the absurdly low figure of 4,500 thousand cited by Goldman.’ There are only 2 ways to determine what the actual figure was. The first is to insist on a full forensic excavation. The second – and less preferable way is to use existing documentation that Yad Vashem already possesses such as the documentation from Nazi Germany, which had accurate and detailed information on Jasenovac. Why does it not release this once and for all, if for no other reason, than to nullify this kind of speculation? Why has Yad Vashem never insisted on a full forensic excavation by the Republic of Croatia?

7. The Yad Vashem press release ends by saying: ‘… it is incumbent on us to ensure that facts and content published in the media be as accurate as possible and based on reliable sources. Ignoring this basic responsibility plays into the hands of those who seek to intentionally mispresent the historical record.’ What this says is that Yad Vashem has no idea whatsoever as to the real death toll of Jasenovac and has completely outsourced the history of this place to those who are either unqualified or have nefarious motives in manipulating the numbers. It has then put researchers in the unenviable position of being attacked as ‘Holocaust deniers’ by these same groups who are trying to hide the fact that much of the research, databases and publicly-available data behind this camp cannot be verified.

8. Why has it looked the other way as the Jasenovac Memorial Park (JUSP) between 2001 and 2019, made no less than 35 alterations to the official victim database? How was this this possible if there was no further forensic excavation after 1964 and knowing that former Yad Vashem Vice Chairman Reuven Dafni confirmed that the Republic of Serbia never provided any documentation pertaining to Jasenovac? So how, why and on the basis of exactly what evidence were these nearly 3 dozen changes made”

9. Why has Yad Vashem never condemned the practice by JUSP (discontinued by 2001, mainly because of the Internet’s ability for comparison) of using pictures from other camps and theatres of war and passing them off as being from WW2 Jasenovac, knowing full well the potential harm this type of cross-contamination could cause the history of the Holocaust?

10. Can Yad Vashem explain why all the data on and/or from Yugoslavia, starting from the 1950s and ending in the 1990s, quotes 5 different official state figures on Jasenovac. All of these figures steadily increase from 1954 onwards. This occurrence has no equal anywhere during the past century and is truly unique in modern history.

11. It is interesting to note that nowhere on its website does Yad Vashem actually state what the Jasenovac death toll was. It says in the press release that: ‘…it is clear to reputable scholars that it is many times greater than the absurdly low figure of 4,500 thousand cited by Goldman, and many times less than the grossly inflated count of more than 800,000.’ Fair enough, but why won’t it say what the figure is. Could it be, like me, it cannot be sure due to manipulation? Or, as I have said many times, no-one will ever know because Jasenovac’s databases have been corrupted so heavily?

12. Is Yad Vashem aware that earlier this year, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) published a peer-reviewed scientific paper that compared the demographic spread of a number of wartime concentration camps to that of their host country’s populations. It found that all the camps results matched their host country’s demographics. All except for Jasenovac that is. The research found that via the use of the ‘Total Variation Outlier Recognizer’ method, that some 89 percent of Jasenovac’s figures were wholly unreliable. This too has no comparison to anywhere in modern history. Will Yad Vashem go on the record to say that the IEEE is also party to an attempt to ‘whitewash’ the history of Jasenovac?

Despite all that has been written across the Balkans and in the Jerusalem Post about my op-ed, let me be clear: while Jasenovac deserves to be condemned, at the same time, I stand by my notion that it does not deserve to be equated with Auschwitz.

I stand by the idea that it also deserves, for the sake of the victims, stability in the region, future generations and to protect the integrity of Holocaust history, to have the full truth be made public once and for all.

It is utterly inconceivable that in 2021, there is in the centre of Europe a place where no-one – including Yad Vashem – knows the reality of what actually happened there during WW2.

Either way, this is not a good situation for Yad Vashem, Holocaust history, or for those who are historians.David Goldman”

Written and compiled by Ina Vukic

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Croatia, David Goldman, Holocaust, Jasenovac, lies against World War Two Croatia, Mocking of Holocaust, Robert Rozett, thegoldmanreport, World War Two Croatia, Yad Vashem

Croatian Academy HAZUDD To Jerusalem Post

September 5, 2021 by inavukic 7 Comments

Dear Sir/Madam,

Your editorial from August 22 and the reactions of Dejan Ristic and Ivo Goldstein and Efraim Zuroff to the article by David Goldman, which you in the meantime withdrew from your website but left the above articles, prompted us to this reaction, hoping for at least some balance, which in fact represents the reality on the world stage of opinions and historical facts discovered to date, on this topic in your newspaper.

There is no need to fear that the Holocaust, as a unique form of collective persecution of the Jewish people, will fall into oblivion, as long as children are taught about it in school history classes. Anyone with a modest knowledge of foreign languages and history today can access information about the results of the census in Central and Eastern Europe and be convinced that during Nazi rule, Jews disappeared in large numbers as well as their religious and cultural objects (synagogues, schools, etc.). If not killed or destroyed, any reasonable person would wonder where millions of people and their places of worship could have gone?

This applies both to both the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), which existed in 1941-45 and included the territory of today’s Croatia (for the most part) and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Serbia. The fact that many more Jews survived the Holocaust in Croatia, in both number and percentage of the Jewish population, than in Serbia, is the result of continuous, extensive rescue operations by the domicile Croatian population and the Catholic Church led by Archbishop Stepinac of Zagreb. While for Archbishop Stepinac, saving Jews was a daily task of caring, the heads of the Serbian Orthodox Church praised Hitler and openly sided with the Nazis against the Jews. If it wasn’t for the works of Esther Gitman, a Fulbright Scholar, (sources: “When Courage Prevailed – rescue and survival of Jews in the Independent State of Croatia 1941-1945” 2011 and “Alojzije Stepinac: Pillar of Human Rights” 2019), which are hardly mentioned in the press, the significant actions of rescuing Jews in the NDH would remain almost completely silenced. The efforts of many Jews to achieve the proclamation of Archbishop Stepinac as Righteous Among the Nations have so far been futile, thus creating a large stain on the reputation of the state of Israel among Croats. There were not many individuals in the enslaved Europe who, like Archbishop Stepinac, dared during the war of 1942 to declare publicly that there was only one race: the race of God (Esther Gitman research).

Despite the facts, the Serbian side on one hand expands the term Holocaust without foundation and thus dilutes it to the suffering of Serbs (Croats), and on the other hand narrows it to the Jasenovac camp, which is thus given mystical properties. An uninformed reader of the Serbian press could conclude that World War II took place mainly in the Jasenovac camp, where Croats killed 800,000 to a million Serbs, and that the Holocaust was a minor side event.

For many years, the number of 5 million non-Jewish Holocaust victims has been bandied around worldwide, and Israeli Gideon Greif, in his work entitled “Jasenovac, Auschwitz of the Balkans”, published by Knjiga komerc Serbia in 2018, claims by pure speculation of other speculators of history, and without exact evidence, that one million, if not more, Serbs lost their lives as victims of the Holocaust in Croatia! So, in such dark alleys along which Greif evidently also moves, a fifth of all non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust in Europe were Serbs! This is the number of victims without scientific basis, and the well-known Nazi and their collaborators hunter, the late Simon Wiesenthal, once said that this number of non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust was “intended to increase sympathy for Jewish suffering but is now more used to obscure it.” Sure, there were many non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust, but inventing the magnitude of that number, as has been done for decades for Serb victims, evidently seeks to diminish or dilute the severity of the tragedy experienced by the Jewish people in the Holocaust.

The bigger tragedy in this prevailing modern world ping pong game about which Holocaust victim was a bigger victim, Jew or non-Jew, lies in the fact that Serbs, with the help of people like Efraim Zuroff and Gideon Greif, seem to have managed to cleanse Serbian hands as the culprits for the extermination of 94% of Serbian Jews in World War II and by August 1942 achieving the status of one of the first countries in Europe to be “Judenfrei” (Jew-free). It is clear to all but Serbs and their political friends that the Serbs and their government of Milan Nedic, not the German Nazis, attached the “Star of David” to Jewish chests and painted it on the facades of Jewish homes, thus marking Jews for extermination.

It is precisely for the removal of this systematic, long-standing blurring of facts, mentioned by David Goldman, that a thorough, multidisciplinary investigation of the events in the Jasenovac camp is necessary as this in itself is indicated by very diverse findings:

1. According to Ivo Goldstein and others, the Jasenovac camp did not cease operating on April 22, 1945, but served as a camp for internment of opponents of Tito’s Yugoslav communist regime to at least May 1951.The Bjelovar Divisional military court findings on 8/28/1946 regarding detainee escape from the camp on 28.08.1946 (source: Croatian State Archives), as well as a 1951 CIA report, serve as evidence of that fact. It is not known that, to date, anyone has systematically deal with research of the victims of the Jasenovac camp after April 22, 1945. Perhaps there were Jews among them also?

2. Analysis of the official list of victims of the Jasenovac camp, managed by the state institution JUSP Jasenovac, using Data Science methods, showed that the list is for the most part (89% of entries) unreliable. The current census, for example, lists victims born in 1969 and 1975, respectively.

3. Contrary to the testimonies of the alleged mass executions in the Jasenovac camp in the period 1941-45, there are also testimonies of men who were boys of that time, who attended trade classes in the camp, that there were no such events.

4. When Bosnian Serbs had to leave the conquered territories around Sarajevo in 1996 as a result of the Dayton Accords, they exhumed the remains of their loved ones in front of TV cameras and took them to their new places of residence. With these acts they strongly showed their stand that remains of their loved ones should not remain in enemy territory. It is interesting that no such request for exhumation of post mortal remains was requested for the Jasenovac camp, which is located on the territory of Croatia.

5. Prompted by the above facts, forensic experts (e.g. letter from prof. dr. sc. Simun Krizanac published in “Hrvatski tjednik” weekly magazine on 12.07.2018 ) already contacted authorities and requested the search and exhumation of the human remains in Jasenovac, believing that firm conclusions about such a camp must be based on forensic medicine research methods.

6. The general progress of science has led to the fact that reconstruction and identification can be carried out for centuries-old human remains.

7. World War II archives are gradually opening up and, hence, opening up space for new insights and new interpretations.

It is clear from the abovesaid that the actual Holocaust on the territory of the then Independent State of Croatia, for which the NDH authorities are co-responsible, is clouded and confused by Serbia’s attempts to portray the course of World War II in Croatia primarily as genocide against the Serbian people. They are wholeheartedly helped by the descendants of the Yugoslav communist rulers (the so-called Red Nobility), who still rule Croatia today, who in this way want to cover up the crimes of their ancestors perpetrated immediately after World War II and during the 45-year reign of fear over Croats until 1990. If it is shown that Croats committed collective genocide during World War II, then by that same logic it would be correct for the Yugoslav Communists to commit comprehensive and protracted revenge and re-education, right?

Let’s finish with Croatia. In the very centre of Zagreb, in Praška Street, there is a parking lot on the site where the synagogue demolished in 1941-42was. This is the simplest proof that the Holocaust took place in Croatia as well. Tito’s Yugoslav communist government, hostile to Jews and Israel, not only did not rebuild it, but demolished the remaining synagogues and many Jewish cemeteries, and built a department store on the site of the Zagreb synagogue, which burned to the ground in a mysterious fire in 1980.

From President Tudjman onwards, the Croatian authorities proposed to the two Jewish communities the reconstruction of the synagogue, which has not happened so far, because the Jewish communities could not agree on the basic parameters. Ivo Goldstein, who never declared himself publicly as a Jew or a believer during Yugoslavia, also plays a not insignificant role in that community. At that time, neither his late father Slavko nor he condemned the demolition of synagogues, for example in Rijeka in 1948, or the anti-Semitic attitude of Tito’s regime, and such dishonourable conduct is not mentioned even today. In addition, the so-called scientist opposes both questioning and further research on the topic of the Jasenovac camp, thus violating the foundations of scientific methodology, to which, as a university professor, he should be deeply loyal.

In Croatia, and especially in Zagreb, there are many valuable real estates, which were taken from the Jews during the Second World War and were never returned to them. They are now inhabited by members of the “red nobility”, who, like Ivo Goldstein and Ognjen Kraus, invent fascism in Croatia, and have never advocated for the correction of injustice against Jews by returning stolen Jewish property.

From all of the above said it follows that the state of Israel, the Jewish people and their reputable media such as the Jerusalem Post, should devote themselves to a detailed investigation of all potential execution sites of Jews during the Holocaust. But if researching the execution sites of Jews during the Holocaust is an area that newspapers like the Jerusalem Post cannot deal with, because such an activity is not on their list of activities for which they are legally licensed, then those same newspapers should contribute to the research of truth and facts by also publishing written articles in relation to all research on the rescue of Jews during the Holocaust in Croatia (eg Esther Gitman) and on Jasenovac after the Second World War (eg Blanka Matković, Stipo Pilić, Igor Vukić, etc.). It is unworthy of the oldest nation in history to be represented in any part of the world by individuals like Ivo Goldstein, ready at any moment for an anti-scientific invention like the notorious bone crusher. This achieves the exact opposite effect, which Goldman rightly observes. Namely, the suspicion that Israel and Serbia have a joint propaganda venture of exaggerating the victims of World War II is completely unnecessarily fuelled. While Serbia abuses victims tenfold (and more) as a justification for hegemonic action in its neighbourhood, it is unclear why the state of Israel clearly does not distance itself from such dishonourable actions.

And even if Ivo Goldstein is completely right with his claim about the bone crusher, which the Ustashas would use just before the end of the war to remove the remains of their victims, (and it cannot be, because neither he nor anyone else mentions it in his and other authors’ numerous books!), then it would be a huge challenge for scientists in the field of forensics and forensic medicine to use the territory of Jasenovac as a testbed for methods of identifying post mortal remains originating in particularly difficult conditions. Judging by his publications and public appearances, Ivo Goldstein has never met a forensic expert or does not know that such a profession exists at all.

A scientist who, in today’s age of reliable analytical and diagnostic methods, claims that everything has been researched and should no longer be researched, recalls into memory the embarrassment of Thomas Watson, the former head of IBM, and thus disqualifies himself in scientific and professional circles.

The diametrically different attitudes towards the smouldering Israeli-Arab conflict, which escalates every now and then, in the successor states of the former Yugoslavia clearly shows which nations, states and political currents are turned to Jews with fraternal respect and understanding, and which with intolerance prone to totalitarian movements and parties. It would be nice if the Jerusalem Post devoted more space to such differences and reflections, instead of history innovator Ivo Goldstein or Dejan Ristic and their collaborator Efraim Zuroff, who present themselves as Holocaust investigators while denying the genocide in Srebrenica, which the Serbian army perpetrated 26 years ago literally in front of TV cameras.

With regards

Dr. sc. Josip Stjepandic, President, Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts in the Diaspora and Homeland / HAZUDD

Mr. sc. Ina Vukic, Vice President, HAZUDD