Slavko Goldstein – Croatia, the War, and the Future

Croatia: Morals Of Lizards And Other Communist Depravities

January 11, 2017 by inavukic 31 Comments

Cover Page
“Hrvatski Tjednik”/ Croatian Weekly
featuring article on
leading communists in Croatia still
terrorising the nation daily
Photo courtesy: Ivica Marijacic, Hrvatski Tjednik

It is axiomatic that politics is the art of the possible, and moral considerations in government will reflect the ideology harboured by those who govern and those who wield power. As profusely as Croatia had bled in its Homeland War during 1990’s as it sought to secede from communist Yugoslavia and build freedom and democracy modeled on the developed democracies of the “Western” world, 25 years on the morals of lizards and other communist depravities are still adversely present in almost every pore of public administration, practices and governance at state and local levels, holding thorough progress to a fully functioning democracy hostage. Momentum to face and deal with this “moral-ethical and state administration crisis” General Zeljko Glasnovic, member of Croatian parliament for the diaspora, has been warning about for some time now, is gaining notable force in Croatia as well as in the diaspora.

General Zeljko Glasnovic
Member of Croatian Parliament for th diaspora
Photo: dnevno.hr

From whatever vantage point one looks, it is unmistakable that there is a moral crisis on the public level in Croatia, which percolates there from personal moral deficiencies in communist resistance to progression away from communist regime and its ideals. There has been a palpable breakdown of the traditional Christian morality across the society that rests on human dignity, freedom and justice modern independent Croatia started its journey with at the beginning of 1990’s and held that morality close to heart all throughout the bloody war. Undoubtedly, the communist heritage that pervades the public administration and all its avenues and mainstream media is the culprit for this crisis. Ugly faces of this crisis can be encountered every day, whether through persisting corruption or new discoveries of it, through tangled red tapes for almost anything one needs done via a public office, through utterly inadequate actions and reactions of government to critical events or through media lynches of anyone and everyone not seen to belong in one way or another to the communist, antifascist, liberal echelons.

With so much focus on government, political figures and people in high positions, journalists following the path of communist resistance to freedom and democracy in Croatia the next obvious question is which ones should be targeted for the removal from position part of lustration process, if politicians championing the cause for it gather enough support and ability to start clearing out the crisis, that is. As it happens, the Croatian Weekly (Hrvatski Tjednik) has last week published a rather good list to aim at, for starters. To aim at either lustrating people from positions of power and if not possible, to neutralise or at least significantly diminish their impact on society.

The article refers to the people on the list as “50 stateless (apatrides) people who terrorise 4.3 million Croats on a daily basis as they mourn the loss of Yugoslavia”.

“As if in a surreal historical story they shed their tears over their dead Yugoslav past, trying to revive her. They do not base on facts or evidence their convictions that are expressly hostile towards Croatia, but on that which attracts them, on hereditary hatreds or, simply, on the deviations of their own political minds. Their Yugo-nostalgia is a legitimate thing, but the problem starts when they align themselves on the side of good, and the rest of us on the side of evil ramming into us a guilt complex because of their overrun ideals and failed lives.”

The list of those that, as Croatian Weekly writes, terrorise Croatia on a daily basis includes:

Stjepan Mesic – former President of Croatia, “die-hard communist led the pack in trying to rehabilitate the criminal communist Yugoslavia, calling all Croats who were against communism – fascists. He idolised the Yugoslav satrap Josip Broz Tito, kept justifying countless and massive communist crimes against Croats, he praised the Serbian myths regarding Croats as genocidal people, he regularly vilifies Croatia for fascism, Ustashe, he attacks the Church, the veterans…”

Ivo Josipovic, former President of Croatia, “a member of the communist caste that attained all its social privileges on the back of the tragedy of the Croatian people. He will be remembered by his vilification of Croatia in Israeli parliament, by the lies he told about Croatia in Bosnia and Herzegovina parliament, by his betrayal in providing Croatia’s secret and classified documents to Serbian ambassador, by his equating of Serb war crimes in Vukovar to individual crimes in Croatia …” the list goes on for him also.

Milorad Pupovac, member of Croatian parliament representing Serb minority and president of NGO Serb National Council in Croatia. To this day Pupovac has not gotten over the failure of the politics he advocated for the Serb ethnic minority in Croatia to achieve the status of a constitution ethnic group in Croatia as opposed to being a minority, which it really is. “He advocates amnesty for Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic and Serbia for the aggression against Croatia, systematically tries to keep Croatia sitting on the bench of the accused by imposing and imputing fascism against her while, at the same time, organises Chetnik gatherings at Srb, advocates for political and cultural Yugoslavianism, goes to Serbia visiting notorious Chetniks for instructions, ignores Croatian laws and holidays, imposes himself as an arbiter who decides between good and evil, fascism and democracy, does not even try to hide his hatred for Croatia and her symbols...”

Vesna Pusic, former foreign minister of Croatia who “more often than not left the impression she was acting as minister of Yugoslavia and not Croatia. Misspent taxpayers money including giving significant funds to her brother’s NGO and this in particular evidences how low morals have fell in Croatia for the parliamentary committee on the matter did not assess this action as conflict of interest…”

Zoran Pusic (Vesna Pusic’s brother). ” Seeks and receives significant funds from state budget for his work via NGO in which he openly promotes Yugo-communist ideology, rehabilitates Josip Broz Tito, justifies his mass murders, does not hesitate in demonising lies and contempt towards Croatians…”

Dragan Markovina, president of New Left party (active member of which is Zoran Pusic), “whose key goal is battle against clericalisation of the Croatian society and against Ustashism. So far his expressed hatred for Croatia has been stronger than that coming out of any Yugonostalgics. It’s unlikely that any other country in the world would tolerate such an enemy to itself…”

Tvrtko Jakovina, history professor at university in Zagreb – loud “apologist for Yugoslavia, its historiography, its crimes and Josip Broz Tito…he is an embarrassment to Croatian people and to the history profession, which he has reduced to defending a failed totalitarian and bloody ideology...”

Hrvoje Hribar, mediocre film director of Yugo-communist genre, who was instrumental in the scandal last year where significant funds from Croatia were channeled to Danish film directors for the making of “15 minutes – the massacre in Dvor” film, which attributed to the Croatian Army the crimes committed by others.

Slavko Goldstein, a publicist who tries to pass himself off as a historian. “Does not shy away from supporting and spreading the worst of lies against Croatia including the number of people killed in Jasenovac camp during WWII, without any evidence to support the bulk of his claims. Goldstein is a Yugoslav pamphlet designer who has not identified himself with the Croatian state and who defends the lies proliferated by Greater Serbia to the last drop of his blood…”

Drago Pilsel, journalist and the crudest, rudest anti-Croatian and pro-communist activist one could probably imagine. Intolerant and crude and insulting to unspeakable lows.

The list goes on – Vesna Terselic from Documenta NGO and New Left party, whose Documenta received government funds with view to researching facts of crimes against Croatian people but she undertook to take the direction of trying to equate the aggressor (Serbia) with the victim (Croatia) in the 1990’s war, and, of course, has not done a thing about communist crimes except perhaps trying to justify them. There’s also in mention on the list of communists terrorising Croats every day people like Social Democrat Nenad Stazic, actor Rade Serbedzija, theatre director Oliver Frljic, Nada Rauker – a most extreme leftist keeping the fires burning for lies that fascism is being revived in Croatia, Tvrtko Jakovina and Hrvoje Klasic, Yugo-nostalgic historians that demonise every step and every expression of independent Croatian state, Mate Kapovic, linguist.

The depraved work in justifying communist crimes, to the extreme of fabricating lies and insulting the very essence of Croatian independence earned through a bloody war demonstrates the apparent depletion of human morality in these and other Yugo-communists terrorizing a nation that wants to get ahead, finally away from communist claws. In this breath I would not categorise the morality of these people into human morality, it’s a morality of lizards and lizards don’t have much of that at all; the morality they do possess always tries to ensure their own survival even if they need to camouflage themselves, sting, or run to come back behind ones back… Even when they slightly change their political stance, even when they try to adapt to the independent Croatia without communism, the morality of lizards in these Yugo-communists always goes against the grain of decency towards what Croatia should stand for as a modern nation: a nation that has dealt justly with its criminal communist past and its victims of communist crimes and a modern nation whose everyday life is weaved with gratitude to those who defended her from the Serb aggressor. There can never be adequate words to describe the reverence held for those that will succeed in chasing these lizards into their dark holes without a return ticket. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Communist Yugoslavia, Croatia, Dragan Markovina, Drago Pilsel, Hrvatski Tjednik, Ivo Josipovic, lustration, Milorad Pupovac, morals of lizards, Slavko Goldstein, Stjepan Mesic, transitioning from communism, Vesna Pusic, Vesna Terselic, Zeljko Glasnovic, Zoran Pusic

Psychological Operations And Information Warfare Against Croatia and Croats – Part V

April 30, 2014 by inavukic 13 Comments

Click on Banner image to enlarge

Guest Post
By Ante Horvat

The former Yugoslav regime elements and their children spearheaded subversive activities against the facts, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) Croats from the 1990s, through to today.

While overtly Yugoslav nationalist in their rhetoric, still to today expending taxpayer resources celebrating the Communist “liberation” and 1945 Partisan (private property) “liberators” of Croatia, they were the first to declare any opponents of their sham anti-war agenda as “nationalist,” “primitive nationalists,” etc. – blaming “nationalists” on “both sides” for the war, and not the marriage of greater Serbian fascism and retrograde Yugoslav Communist Titoism and the detailed Serbian General Officers plan for aggression, beginning with the reorganization of Territorial Defense in the mid 1980s, through to the ‘Yogurt Revolution,’ trampling of the SFRY Constitution, quasi-legal attempt at Kosovizing Croatia and the rest of then Yugoslavia, and of course the Rampart (RAM) Plan, with the explicit order to target civilians to demoralize ‘enemies,’ and overtly stated goal of creating a Greater Serbia at the expense of most of Croatia and the whole of B&H, with access to Croatia’s coastline.

Among the more vocal propagandists in the front of the charge was none other than Croatia’s current Minister of Foreign Affairs, and unofficial Shadow Foreign Minister of Serbia, Vesna Pusic, sister of UJDI (Association for Yugoslav Democratic Initiative) co-founder and current GOLJP head (Citizens Committee for Human Rights), Zoran Pusic.

Vesna Pusic helped form Erasmus Gilda in 1993, a declaratively pro-European organization, along with Slavko Goldstein, and other post-1990 self-styled “human rights” activists (the systematic violations of human rights before 1990 was apparently not a problem to them as they were silent and remain silent about them) and disinformation luminaries who all just happened to be against Yugoslavia joining the European Community prior to the first free elections in 1990, because the EC was a free market economy.

Along with the previously mentioned outlets like Arkazin, Feral Tribune and others regurgitating Belgrade’s propaganda on a weekly basis, Erasmus gatherings, published articles and their eventual failed magazine that generous USAID funds could not save, touted the line and gave the anti-fact agenda political legitimacy as they included many academics who rose to prominence within Tito’s Yugoslavia.

Here was yet another case of foreign aid subsidizing another controlled opposition – who foreign governments would openly put into power in 2000, and again in 2011.

The main propaganda agendas of these foreign-subsidized controlled opposition fronts, and foreign-financed controlled opposition political actors, as well as Belgrade’s propaganda, was during the war and remains the following, in no particular order:

Push the “all sides are guilty” and “civil war” lie to spin Serbia’s aggression and the moral responsibility of the Western powers that overtly and tacitly supported Serbia’s aggression diplomatically and through domestic media filters and planted stories;

Equate Croatia’s defensive war effort with Serbia’s offensive aggression;

Equate Croatia’s defense of B&H in 1992 and the HVO’s defense of B&H Croats in the face of Serbian and later Muslim aggression with Serbia’s aggression against Croatia;

Push the Karadjordjevo fable and “Tudman divided B&H” myth;

Criminalize any and all symbols of Croatian statehood (the Kuna currency, Croatia’s Grb, etc.) by tying them to the Independent State of Croatia (WWII NDH);

Look for “Ustashe,” if you can’t find them, make them up;

Blow any Croatian backlash or isolated criminal act during wartime out of proportion and tie it to the highest levels of power while entirely ignoring the top-down, bottom-up systematic war crimes by the YPA/Yugoslav Peoples Army and VRSK/Army of Serbian Republic of Krajina (see the Zec family politicization since 1991, with the recent street naming ruse);

Lobby for “Krajina” political legitimacy at Western embassies and in Western capitals while domestically attack the government for being weak for not defeating “Krajina” while simultaneously claiming the “Krajina” is too strong to fall and Serbia will get involved if Croatia operationally engages it, implication being that it is better to leave it alone and recognize it;

Criminalize the Homeland War, all Generals, and all Veterans, with phrases like “turbo-Generals,” “Oluja/Storm was ethnic cleansing, “fake veterans,” “drunk veterans,” “gambling veterans,” etc. – anything to do with the Homeland War, the men who led it or the men who fought in it must be all negative, all the time with qualifiers regarding “our crimes” at any opportunity, all under the banner of “de-Tudmanization”;

Sack competent wartime and intelligence commanders whenever possible;

Collaborate with UK, US and other foreign intelligence agencies in maligning not just General Ante Gotovina and all associates, but the Homeland War itself and actively wage information warfare against it;

Legitimize ICTY political prosecutions and show trials of Croats from Croatia and B&H and applaud all politically-charged, logical acrobatic convictions based off of cherry-picked misquotes out of context, evidence suppression, and constructing events entirely out of chronological order;

Stay silent on Momcilo Perisic, Franko Simatovic and Jovica Stanisic’s acquittals, as well as no ICTY convictions of any Army of B&H commanders for the systematic war crimes and gunpoint ethnic cleansing of Croats in Central Bosnia and North Herzegovina between October 1992 and the1994 Split Agreement;

Paint Franjo Tudjman as a warmonger and authoritarian; compare to Ante Pavelic and Adolf Hitler when possible;

Push anything and everything Serbian in social and cultural spheres, no matter how low-brow (Baja Mali Knindza, Ceca, Cajke, how to be a Sponzorusa program on RTL, etc.);

Rehabilitate the cult of Tito and Communist Partisan “liberation” and infallibility myth at every corner, with if not daily then weekly stories referencing the “glories” of Tito and the Partisans, and make sure to have a weekly Yugonostalgia session on HRT by airing second rate, low-budget Yugoslav Communist political cinema;

Continually push WWII debates as if it was ongoing to cover up for failed policies and collapsing economy and no actual long-term political or economic strategy;

Frame all political and economic discourse about independent Croatia, especially the Homeland War, in a negative context while simultaneously framing any discussions about Tito’s Yugoslavia in a positive, at a minimum, neutral context;

Demand Croatia “come to terms with its crimes” of the 1990s while savagely denouncing any suggestion of the same in regards to the Communists’ crimes during and after WWII, or that the Serbian community in Croatia do the same in regards to both the 1990s, WWII, and the first Yugoslavia;

Ridicule the very idea of lustration laws being passed; label it “nationalist” to nip it in the bud;

Do everything possible to drive a wedge between Croatia’s diaspora and the Homeland;

Demand that Croatia abide by every single UN, EU, or ICTY demand, no matter how idiotic or how much of a double-standard, especially when they negatively affect Croatia’s sovereignty, national interests, and national security while simultaneously using all means available in defending the CCP (KPH/Communist Party of Croatia) and UDBa Octopus (Yugoslav Secret Police) at the expense of diplomatic relations with Germany and the EU;

Criminalize the very thought of Herceg Bosna or any Croatian legal or political equality, economic freedom, local self rule, or even following the Dayton Agreement as was agreed upon, and always support Sarajevo’s line, or remain silent on the burning Croat question;

Push a pro-London, anti-Berlin and anti-Vienna policy – sign a strategic partnership with the one state that comes in second to Serbia only in terms of damaging Croatia politically and diplomatically (UK) once foreign subsidies and foreign subsidized (and facilitated in foreign media) propaganda bring you to power;

Ignore Central Europe, never speak of the Visegrad Four (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary), and speak only of the “region” to Croatia’s south, not to its north, northeast or west – never even entertain the idea of making the Visegrad Four the Visegrad five, and never demand Serbia meet the same criteria and extra criteria Croatia had to fulfill for EU entry;

Accept money from anyone, including those “capitalist pig” governments who were supposed to submit to the superiority of Yugoslav Socialist Self-Management;

Denounce, decry and try to legally bar the right of Croatia’s Diaspora and Croats in Herceg Bosna to vote while not demanding the same for Croatian citizens of Serbian origin in RS (Serbian Republic) and Serbia, who do not pay Croatian taxes – organize bus transport for them to vote in Croatia;

Thwart any meaningful investment with bizarre regulations, a monstrous tax code, bureaucracy, and torpedo any business investment, including sweet-heart deals, at the strategic and state level through incompetence if they conflict with Anglo-American business or geopolitical interests (see the Qatar debacle).

———————————

About the author: Ante Horvat was born in the USA in 1970′s. He has recently moved to live permanently in Croatia and although spending most of his life in the USA he had made several temporary residence visits to Croatia during that time. His education and professional development in history and international relations also spans across the two continents. He is an active observer of and participant in the development of democracy in Croatia since the early 1990’s and its correlation with the developed Western democracies.

———————————

Part VI – The next installment will look the new and subtle English-language information warfare against Croatia, subsidized by allies no less.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Ante Gotovina, anti-Croatian propaganda, Bleiburg, Brent Scowcroft, C. Michael McAdams, Chetniks, Communist Yugoslavia, Croatia, Croatian Homeland War, Croatian Six, Davor Domazet Loso, de-Tudjmanization, Dusko Cizmic Marovic, Edward Snowden, Elisabeth Hellenbroich, Erasmus Gilda, F. William Enghdal, Five Eyes, Franjo Tudjman, gatekeeping, General Lewis MacKenzie, George Soros, Glenn Greenwald, Godot, GOLJP, Greater Serbia, Herceg-Bosna, ICTY, Ilija Garasanin, Independent State of Croatia, information warfare, Ivan Cermak, Ivo Goldstein, Ivo Josipovic, James Baker III, Jasenovac, Jerry Blaskovich, Josip Broz Tito, Karadjordjevic, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Lawrence Eagleburger, Luka Misetic, lustration, Mark Burdman, Miroslav Tudjman, Mladen Markac, Nationalism, NDH, Open Society Institute, OSI, Paolo Raimondi, Philip J. Cohen, PROMIS, psychological operations, Renaud de la Brosse, SANU, SANU Memorandum II, Scott Thompson, Serbia, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, SFRY, Slavko Goldstein, Stjepan Mesic, Subversive Activities, UDBA, United Kingdom, United Nations, USAID, Ustasha, Ustashe, Vesna Pusic, Yugoslav secret police, Zarko Pohovski, Zoran Pusic

Croatia: Goldstein – Pundits Of Totalitarian Regimes’ Victims Discrimination

September 8, 2013 by inavukic 33 Comments

Slavko and Ivo Goldstein and their book
“Jasenovac and Bleiburg are not the same” –
Photo: Zarko Basic/Pixsell
YES THEY ARE and WHAT’S MORE “BLEIBURG”
REPRESENTS MANY MORE DEAD
INNOCENTS AT THE HANDS OF COMMUNISTS

In very recent days Slavko Goldstein, founder in 1989 of Croatian Social Liberal Party (HSLS) and writer, has given an interview to Croatia’s Novi List in which he states in no uncertain words that EU remembrance day of victims of totalitarian regimes should not be held on the same day (23 August) for victims of Nazi regime (Hitler) and victims of Communist crimes (Stalin) because it equates the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany and that, he said, is “in contradiction with the entirety of historical truth”.

Given that Goldstein was a Partisan in the communist led Yugoslav troops of WWII one is not surprised at such views of his. After all, Stalin and Europe’s communists (including Yugoslavia’s Tito) were aligned with the Allies and they wrote the history to which Goldstein refers, leaving out of the historical spotlight the equally atrocious crimes perpetrated by communists as were those perpetrated by the Nazis.

Goldstein goes on to say that both Hitler and Stalin were criminals, but not of the same kind! “Hitler,” he says, “ from beginning to end pursued his criminal politics. Stalin commenced his criminal politics during 1920’s, which culminated during 1930’s with the massive purges, but from 1941 to 1945 he was the main carrier of battles against Hitler… unfortunately he resumed his purges after the war ended…”

In a commentary to this interview given by Goldstein, R.Horvat of HRSvijet portal writes: “And despite the estimates by which modern European historical account considers that communism is responsible for the death of more than 100 million people, of which 50 million victims are attributed to Mao Tze-Tung, 40 million to Stalin, 4 million to Lenin, 2 million to Pol Pot and 1 million to Tito, while 20 million deaths are attributed to Hitler, Slavko Glodstein wants to convince the Croatian public that it’s out of order to equate Hitler’s national-socialism with communism”.

Slavko Goldstein nevertheless admits that communism perpetrated crimes but he continues defending the role of Stalin and Soviet Union.

To me, Goldstein’s conviction is nothing more than blatant discrimination between victims. Does it really matter whether the majority of Stalin’s victims fell in brutal and atrocious sweeps by the totalitarian regime before and after, but not during WWII? No, it does not!

23 August was chosen to coincide with the date of the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (23.08. 1939/ a.k.a. Nazi-Soviet Pact, non-aggression pact), in which the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany agreed to divide Eastern Europe between themselves. Both of these countries at the time had the worst forms of totalitarian regimes in the history of humanity. Hence, the very appropriate date chosen by the EU to remember victims of totalitarian regimes. The two subsequently collided with vicious and atrocious force. Essentially, one could say that Stalin was the front man for the Jews and Hitler was the enemy of the Jews.

Furthermore, the truth of history when it comes to Stalin is not as Slavko Goldstein says (i.e. that Stalin steered away from crimes during the war). “In Stalin’s Gulag some 516,543 people died between 1941 and 1943, sentenced by the Soviets to labor, but deprived of food by way of German invasion. Were these people victims of Stalin or of Hitler? Or both? … Hitler was worse, because his regime propagated the unprecedented horror of the Holocaust, the attempt to eradicate an entire people on racial grounds. Yet Stalin was also worse, because his regime killed far, far more people—tens of millions, it was often claimed—in the endless wastes of the Gulag. For decades, and even today, this confidence about the difference between the two regimes—quality versus quantity—has set the ground rules for the politics of memory. Even historians of the Holocaust generally take for granted that Stalin killed more people than Hitler, thus placing themselves under greater pressure to stress the special character of the Holocaust, since this is what made the Nazi regime worse than the Stalinist one.” (Timothy Snyder, “Hitler vs. Stalin: Who was Worse?” 2011)

According to Slavko Goldstein, it transpires that victims of both totalitarian regimes must not be treated the same essentially because there’s a few years of time difference between the two mass slaughters, even if they all fall under the insignia of victims of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes 23 August has been designated to remember them all by.

Or, is Slavko Goldstein saying: victims of the communist regime are less valuable than victims of the Holocaust?

Why fear the equating of victims of Nazi and Communist regimes? Could it be that Goldstein fears that perpetrators of horror on both sides will be seen as equally brutal and beastly? History so far has more or less spared the communist regime from the harsh but utterly just destiny the Nazis had been put through after WWII.

Whether Goldstein, or those who are like-minded agree or not, the fact is that both of these totalitarian regimes were equally brutal and beastly, and if we count the number of victims as a measure of brutality then communism wins hands down. And this could very well be the root of Goldstein’s pathetic reasoning regarding the 23 of August.

“The 23rd August (1939) pact between Nazi Germany and Communist USSR opened the door towards the East for Hitler, but before then, on 30th September 1938, England and France had already opened that door with the Munich agreement which handed Czechoslovakia to Hitler. England and France share the guilt for 23rd August. So, that date is one of the milestones of the war and war crimes, but not their main symbol”, Goldstein argues in his interview.

But let’s call a spade, a spade! On reflection, the West and the Communist countries have always hated Adolf Hitler after WWII. Joseph Stalin, however, was once their favourite (in Yugoslavia Tito ditched him in 1948 and became himself a certain favourite during the years of the Cold war). Only in recent couple of decades, especially, has Stalin acquired some of the reproach and outrage once reserved for Adolf Hitler – and only half-heartedly. What is the explanation?

Could it be because some see Stalin’s crimes as committed on behalf of the Jews and Hitler’s crimes were committed against the Jews?

Joseph Stalin now enjoys a bad reputation. Tito’s should follow suit. But Stalin is never seen as bad as Adolf Hitler and ‘The Holocaust’. And certainly, it seems that Slavko Goldstein would want us to believe that.

Forty five million dead at the hands of Stalin (communist totalitarian regime across Europe while he was the head figure) cannot be compared with the recognised six million dead Jews across Europe, indeed! Discussion of numbers can blunt our sense of the horrific personal character of each killing and the irreducible tragedy of each death. The reality is that the difference between zero and one is infinity. Every single victim is as important as the other no matter at whose hands, how and when he/she became a victim.

To keep the appalling discrimination between victims of totalitarian regimes within the Goldstein family, Slavko with his historian son Ivo Goldstein published a book in 2011 “Jasenovac and Bleiburg Are Not The Same” (Jasenovac being the symbol of pro-Nazi killings in Croatia during WWII and Bleiburg being the symbol of Communist killings). In essence they consider “Jasenovac” crime of genocide and “Bleiburg” crime against humanity or war crime. Yet both of these crimes comprised of systematic killings and deaths attributed to communist crimes far outweigh those of pro-Nazi crimes!
“Holocaust scholars have criticized a growing tendency in central and eastern Europe to equate the Shoah (Holocaust) with Communist oppression, a trend which they consider ‘the gravest threat to preserving the memory of the Holocaust’ as it served to exculpate populations complicit in the extermination of their Jewish minorities, according to a report by the Israeli newspaper ‘Haaretz’. Professor Yehuda Bauer of the Hebrew University called equation attempts ‘campaigns to marginalize the Holocaust’,” said the World Jewish Congress in 2010 and concluded: “To be sure, no one can or should minimize the untold suffering caused by Communist tyranny, of which Jews were also victims, but common commemoration will only serve to disfigure memory and history.”

It would seem to me that the only disfigurement of memory and history is pursued by those who maintain that victims of the Holocaust should have a place of piety and justice above any place the victims of Communist crimes of the same totalitarian regimes era should have. Furthermore, insisting or suggesting that the victims of each of the totalitarian regimes should be remembered on different days only prolongs the abominable discrimination against victims of communism the world has been served with since WWII. Separating the two, as has been the case, will continue to feed the false impression, and perhaps conviction, that one criminal was better than the other, when in fact, and in terms of humanity – both regimes were regimes of murder and intolerance. Separating the two groups of victims also seems to leave an ever bitter taste that victims of the Nazi regime were perhaps more valuable human beings than the victims of the communist regimes. This of course should not be and must not be tolerated any longer. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)