How Holocaust Revisionists Remake History as Nationalist Sham
Historical revisionists in Croatia and Ukraine are selectively quoting archive sources to politically whitewash their country’s involvement in Nazi collaboration and other World War II crimes [...]
The consumption of history seems to be more widespread than ever: from general-interest history magazines and historical dramas and documentaries to historical fiction, popular history seems, well, unprecedentedly popular.
The evolution of the TV historian reflects this trend: where once real working historians who had written serious books hosted television programmes, these days they are as likely to be photogenic media presenters with minimal, if any, actual history qualifications.
The attraction of history and being a historian are not hard to work out. In the public imagination, historians are usually considered to be intelligent, objective people, if a little eccentric, who tell us fascinating facts about the past but also important things about the present too.
Existing at the intersection of social science, humanities and art, historians not only reconstruct the stories of ordinary people, but get to give their opinions about contemporary issues, above all national ones. What’s not to love?
Two events in recent weeks related to memory and the Holocaust in Croatia made me think about this again – what it means to be a historian and how perceptions of history have changed in recent years, particularly in the formerly socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe.
Kiev 2017: Celebration of the leaders of a Nazifascist movement of the WWII Ukraine
First, there was the controversy caused by the laudatory review of Igor Vukic’s revisionist study of Jasenovac concentration camp, ‘Radni logor Jasenovac’ (‘Jasenovac Labour Camp’) by the critic Milan Ivkosic in the mainstream Vecernji list.
In his book, Vukic denies that the Ustasa-run Jasenovac camp was a place of extermination. Instead, he insists that it was a re-education and labour camp in which only political enemies of the Ustasa regime were imprisoned and one which provided prisoners not only with opportunities to learn new skills but cultural and sporting activities too.
Elsewhere, members of Vukic’s revisionist Society for the Research of the Threefold Jasenovac Camp have repeatedly – and falsely – claimed that in the post-war era, under the Partisans, Jasenovac continued to operate, this time as a real extermination camp, for Croats.
What was most striking about Ivkosic’s review of the Jasenovac book was the language he used to describe its supposed qualities. He described Vukic as a “calm observer, completely devoted to the facts” and the book itself as making an “enormous contribution” to the research of the “truth” of Jasenovac, free of ideological bias and “Greater Serbian and Communist falsifications”.
This followed closely after the news that Vlatka Vukelic, a historian of medieval Croatia and classical civilisation who has endorsed revisionist claims about the existence of a post-war extermination camp as well as a number of other Ustasa nostalgic canards about wartime Croatia, had been contracted to teach the history of the Nazi-allied Independent State of Croatia to undergraduate students at the University of Zagreb.
This is hardly the first time the University of Zagreb has hired academics with a problematic relationship to the Ustasa regime and the Holocaust. Nor, as illustrated by the example of Volodymyr Viatrovych, the director of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, is this an exclusively Croatian problem.
Like Vukic’s book about Jasenovac, Viatrovych’s heavily-criticised studies of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army have been framed in the language of scholarly ‘objectivity’ and similarly relied on selective archival sources to build their revisionist arguments.
Today, the history of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe is characterised, to an unprecedented degree, by nationalist agendas: within that basic framework, the history of Ukraine and Croatia have become particularly poisonous.
While the experiences of Ukraine and Croatia were not identical, the impact of the occupation and the role of local collaborators for the Jews, Roma and other ‘undesired elements’ (in the case of Ukraine Poles and Russians, in the case of Croatia, Serbs) was similarly catastrophic.
Although the academic backgrounds of Vukic and Viatrovych are somewhat different – Vukic is a former journalist and self-described historian while Viatrovych holds the equivalent of a doctorate in history – their output is proving increasingly influential among a section of their respective audiences for a number of reasons.
First, individuals and organisations which want to believe that the Ustasa or the OUN were the ‘good guys’ in the story of the Second World War are naturally going to be receptive to the distorted version of history they are pedalling. More importantly, though, the archival approach taken by Vukic and Viatrovych looks superficially legitimate.
The fact that it isn’t since it invariably involves stripping archival sources of the context in which they were written, removing the bits which don’t fit with the story they want to tell and ignoring sources that undermine their narrative won’t be noticed by consumers of such books who will associate the use of archival sources with real knowledge and expertise.
Croatia’s President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović in Canada photographed with the flag of the WWII Nazifascist Independent State of Croatia
Although the popularisation of history has been a potentially positive development in many respects, it has failed to bring a greater understanding of how historical methodologies work. Historians of Eastern Europe and the Holocaust, with their fetishisation of the archives, haven’t helped in this regard, helping to reinforce the impression that archival research is inherently reliable research.
This is particularly the case in South-Eastern Europe where history and political science students are taught how to use archives from the moment they start their undergraduate studies and often even before this point.
But history always has been and always will be about far more than using archives. Archival sources are as contradictory, misleading and freighted with sleight of hand as any other kind of source. There is no mystery to them either: using them requires no special expertise.
There is also no guarantee that what comes out at the end of the process will be ‘history’ in any meaningful sense of the word. If you cherry-pick data, as Holocaust revisionists do, then what is produced will be basically worthless in empirical terms.
Nor is a Holocaust revisionist who uses archival sources suddenly transformed into a historian simply by virtue of using an archive no more than a person who likes reading books can be considered a novelist.
They remain a Holocaust denier who has simply used archival sources. The expertise lies in being able to interpret what is meant by the sources, avoiding bias and getting inside the mindset of those who wrote them. It’s why grad school exists.
If pseudo-historians certainly profit from the popularisation of history and the increasing view that anyone can be a historian, they have also been fortunate in operating in an extremely receptive climate.
While it is true that some Croatian historians have been outspoken in combatting the culture of lies promoted by the revisionists and in exposing their shoddy, amateurish methods, many of the most prominent critics are not actually historians of the Ustasa regime or the Holocaust.
Meanwhile, too many historians of the Independent State of Croatia elsewhere in Europe or the US – and here there is a striking contrast with Ukrainian Holocaust history – have not made any meaningful effort to push back against the mounting revisionism: in some cases, they have actually helped the revisionists’ cause by seeming to endorse some of their claims.
Of course, the rewriting of history could be stopped tomorrow if the government in Croatia wished to do it, but the toleration of Ustasa nostalgia is ruthlessly pragmatic and cynical.
All the main Croatian political parties believe, to a greater or lesser extent, that they need the electoral support of the far right hence their toleration of and even pandering to Holocaust denial. At the same time, they are aware of how damaging it is for Croatia’s image, thus explaining the current government’s scarcely credible insistence that no such problem with Holocaust revisionism exists.
If the introduction of the kind of anti-Holocaust and genocide denial laws that exist in Germany and certain other European states is unrealistic, counter-productive and likely to raise profound questions about the limits of free speech, historians can play their part by communicating complex ideas in an imaginative, accessible and above all emotionally-engaged form to the public.
Too much current history writing on the Ustasa regime in newspapers – for example, on the anniversary of the establishment of the state – is intellectually obscurantist, divorced from the experiences of the real individuals who suffered occupation and terror and not relatable to ordinary Croats.
They also need to make the public more aware of what history is and what it is not. What it certainly is not is deciding on an ideological viewpoint and then selecting evidence to support it.
Croatia today: A Croat family in the WWII Nazifascist Ustashi uniforms
History is multi-layered, complex and full of contradictions for the simple reason that history is the story of individuals, the circumstances in which they lived and died, the decisions they made and the ways in which they interacted with each other and society.
Historians do not and should not come with ideological frameworks: they undertake only to work with the traces of the lives individuals left behind – archives, newspapers and journals, personal artefacts, diaries, letters – and to tell their stories as completely as they can.
Writing history requires imagination, empathy, intellectual flexibility and an overriding commitment to go where the data lead you even when that doesn’t fit with your preconceptions, prejudices or research assumptions.
Holocaust revisionists in Croatia, like those in Ukraine and elsewhere, might be many things, including people who know how to order documents from archives, but what they are not is historians.
It is time that the media, commentators and, not least, academics stopped describing them as such.
NDH – Independent State of Croatia – Final Solution of the Serbian Question, 1941-1945
We would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.
EuroMaidan Ukraine today: Azov Battalion with the Nazi insignia
In late November 2013, the 'Euromaidan' in Kiev began as a popular protest against a generalized state of corruption and cronyism in Ukraine. The spark that ostensibly ignited the protests was the inability of then President Yanukovych to sign an EU Association Agreement that would cut Ukraine's economic and military ties to Russia in favor of a closer relationship with the EU and NATO.The EU had made the release of former Ukrainian prime minister and "gas princess" Tymoshenko a precondition for signing the agreement. But the fact that Tymoshenko was/is a convicted embezzler of state funds, combined with the rather ...
“Workers of my country, I have faith in Chile and its destiny. Other men will overcome this dark and bitter moment when treason seeks to prevail. Keep in mind that, much sooner than later, the great avenues will again be opened through which will pass free men to construct a better society. Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the workers!” President Salvador Allende’s farewell speech, 11 September 1973.“It’s hard to find someone with the fighting spirit, courage and the story of Allende. He was a man who actually had the branded name in history: democratically the left came ...
Millions of white people glorify mass murderers because their sense of identity and place in society is deeply tied to white supremacy.“It is important to name and shame the mass murderers.”The perpetrators of crimes against humanity are often elevated to positions of respect and admiration. It all depends on who did the killing, and who was killed. Now the murderers are being called to account. The new movement in the United States against police and other state violence has inspired this welcome change taking place all over the world. The criminals are being exposed decades and even centuries after their atrocities ...
,Gavrilo Princip was first buried in secret in an unmarked grave at the Theresienstadt or Terezin prison following his death on April 28, 1918. His remains were exhumed and transferred to Sarajevo on July 7, 1920. This was Gavrilo Princip’s grave until 1939 when a Chapel was built to replace the grave.The other conspirators were also interred in this grave. Bogdan Zerajic’s remains were also reburied here.The assassination occurred on the Orthodox holiday, Vidovdan or St. Vitus’ Day, Sunday, on June 28, 1914. For this reason the conspirators were called the “Vidovdan Heroes” and the Chapel memorial was named “The ...
It was NATO’s first out-of-area operation, against its own Treaty and without a UN mandate. On March 24, 1999.Independent Kosovo was established – against UN SC resolution 1244. Thanks to the Clinton administration and Madeleine Albright. CNN’s Amanpour endorsed it generously on TV with her State Department husband, James Rubin, a chief operator in the non-negotiations at Rambouillet. And TIME of course knew the truth too.Serbia suffered tremendously from the 78 days of indiscriminate, hard bombing. I know because I was there.Finally, Serbia and its president Milosevic was threatened with total destruction of Belgrade. And gave in.Western hubris after the ...
15 June 2015 marks the 800th anniversary of the signing of Magna Carta by King John at Runnymede. Magna Carta notably gave English “free men” freedom from arbitrary, non-judicial imprisonment, dispossession, outlawing, banishment or destruction by the ruler, a freedom that was variously progressively extended to all citizens and subjects in the Anglosphere over the next 8 centuries. However the US, UK, Apartheid Israel, and Australia have continued to grossly violate this freedom in the 21st century.King John I of England reluctantly granted the Magna Carta ("the Great Charter") on 15 June 1215 after leading Barons had insisted on formal ...
March 24, 2018, marks the 19th anniversary of NATO illegal and illegitimate bombing of Yugoslavia, Serbia and its Kosovo, province during 78 days. It has – one is tempted to say: of course – been conveniently forgotten by the West itself.It was masterminded by the United States under Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright after the so-called negotiations between Serbs and Albanians in Rambouillet outside Paris (the parties never met face-to-face).While Clinton may be best remembered for his relations with Monica Lewinsky and his wife, Hillary Clinton, some of us also remember him (and Albright) for bombing Afghanistan, ...
The title page of Rūta Vanagaitė’s best-known book contains two pictures of young men. “This one is a Jew,” she said, pointing at the picture on the left. “He was a bicycle-racing champion. Good enough to represent Lithuania in international competitions, but not good enough to live.” He was executed during the Holocaust. The man in the picture on the right was a Lithuanian executioner. “They are both us,” Vanagaitė explained. “But Lithuanians don’t like to think of them as ‘us,’ because one is a Jew and the other is a killer.” Her book is called “Us.” (The title has ...
As it appears Lithuania expects major changes in the near future. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevičius was on an official visit to the United States of America from the 20 to the 24 of February 2017. During a visit he said that Lithuania seeks the permanent presence of United States troops in its territory."We have requested stationing of military forces in our country on a more permanent basis - not only rotational but also more permanent," the minister told BNS in the telephone interview from Washington D.C.Linas Linkevicius' call for the permanent presence of United States troops in Lithuania territory ...
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics, and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]Save
The crumbling “liberal” West is in a desperate hurry in the Balkans. More than a quarter century since the first Western states, pushed by Germany, unilaterally recognized the secession of the former Yugoslav federal republics of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina and about 19 years since NATO’s air and land attack against what had remained of the country (the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, comprising Serbia and Montenegro) resulting in NATO’s occupation and subsequent forced amputation of Serbia’s Kosovo and Metohija province (by way of recognition of its unilaterally declared independence of February 2008 by the main Western powers, some – but not all Muslim ...
The German occupation forces were those who have been the first to create and recognize a short-lived state’s independence of Ukraine in January 1918 during the time of their-own inspired and supported anti-Russian Bolshevik Revolution of 1917−1921. As reoccupied by the Bolshevik Red Army, the eastern and southern parts of the present-day territory of (a Greater) Ukraine joined in 1922 the USSR as a separate Soviet Socialist Republic (without Crimea). According to the 1926 Soviet census of Crimea, the majority of its population were the Russians (382.645). The second-largest ethnic group were the Tartars (179.094). Therefore, a Jew V. I. ...
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]SaveSave
In Kukavica village near Rogatica (nowadays Bosnia and Herzegovina), today was marked 27 years since crimes against Serbian civilians committed by Bosnian Muslims, members of the so-called Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina on August 27, 1992.In an attack on a column of Serbian civilians, involving about 1,000 elderly people, women and children on tractors and passenger vehicles, Bosnian Muslim extremists killed 26 and injured 80 Serbs.Rogatica Mayor Milorad Jagodic called this a monstrous crime as among the victims are a child of 11 and 82 years old man.“This was a column of innocent people who were looking for refuge and ...
November 1991 is a month and year that will forever live in infamy when it comes to one of the most grievous crimes committed under the rubric of Western foreign policy, as it was on this month in this year that the break-up and destruction of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) was set in train.The Arbitration Commission of the Peace Conference on Yugoslavia was a body set up in 1991 by the Council of Ministers of the European Economic Community (EEC) in response to the conflict that had broken out between separatists in Slovenia and Croatia and the ...
The world is at a dangerous crossroads. The United States and its allies have launched a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The US-NATO military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.America’s hegemonic project is to destabilize and destroy countries through acts of war, covert operations in support of terrorist organizations, regime change and economic warfare. The latter includes the imposition of deadly macro-economic reforms ...
On January 20, the Turkish military began an invasion of the Kurdish-controlled Afrin region in northern Syria. Turkey’s government has declared that its operation aims “to preserve Syria’s territorial integrity,” remove “terrorist elements,” and protect civilians.The Independent, however, published the first Western media report from Afrin, and Robert Fisk reports that the list of dead includes infants. “One-year old Wael al-Hussein, a refugee…was killed on 21 January, six-year old Moussab al-Hussein from Idlib (clearly from another refugee family) on the same day,” he writes.Many journalists in Turkey, in the meanwhile, are rubbing their hands. Necati Doğru, a columnist with one ...
The missile attack on a US ship off the coast of Yemen was a major news event, but the subsequent follow up story, that it may never have happened, was either ignored by mainstream media or intentionally covered up. The whole thing has the same odor as the Gulf of Tonkin incident that never occurred.Does history repeat itself? Sure does seem like it. That is if you compare America’s entry into the Vietnam civil war, with America’s latest entry into the war in Yemen.Don’t be mistaken, we have been at war with Yemen for a year now. America sided with ...
IntroductionAfter the catastrophic attacks of September 11 2001 monumental sorrow and a feeling of desperate and understandable anger began to permeate the American psyche. A few people at that time attempted to promote a balanced perspective by pointing out that the United States had also been responsible for causing those same feelings in people in other nations, but they produced hardly a ripple. Although Americans understand in the abstract the wisdom of people around the world empathizing with the suffering of one another, such a reminder of wrongs committed by our nation got little hearing and was soon overshadowed by ...
Article by Vladislav B. Sotirović: „A New Age of Global Security: The ‚Ukrainian Question‘ and ‚Kosovo Precedent‘“, Vojno delo (Military affairs), Interdisciplinary Scientific Theoretical Journal, International Edition, Vol. 69, Issue 4, 2017 (May-June 2017), ISSN 0042-8426, Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia, pp. 176−211.Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth ...
Jasenovac – Croat run death camp
Kiev 2017: Celebration of the leaders of a Nazifascist movement of the WWII Ukraine 
Croatia’s President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović in Canada photographed with the flag of the WWII Nazifascist Independent State of Croatia
Croatia today: A Croat family in the WWII Nazifascist Ustashi uniforms
EuroMaidan Ukraine today: Azov Battalion with the Nazi insignia
