Jasenovac Camp Book Challenges Right-Wing Revisionism
Historian Ivo Goldstein launched a new study of Croatia’s Jasenovac concentration camp, challenging attempts to downplay the crimes committed there by the fascist Ustasa during World War II [...]
Killing a Serb in Jasenovac by Croatian soldiers in WWII
Croatian historian Ivo Goldstein presented his new book ‘Jasenovac’, which is intended to counter widespread historical revisionism about the concentration camp, to a packed hall at the Journalists’ Building in Zagreb on Wednesday evening.
The book outlines the chronological development of events at the camp, which was run by the Croatian fascist Ustasa movement, and examines the psychological profiles of those who committed crimes and their victims.
At the presentation, Goldstein criticised revisionists who have suggested that the camp was not as bad as historical accounts have suggested.
Vecernji list newspaper commentator Milan Ivkosic wrote in August that “there was fun in the camp”, mentioning football matches and theatre plays that inmates allegedly staged.
Goldstein said that inmates did play football, but at the same time they were constantly in danger of being killed by the Ustasa.
“Yes, [the operetta] ‘Little Floramye’ was played and performed and [other] theatre plays, but then it should be said that of 20 members of this theatre and music group, 19 were killed,” he said.
“And [it should be said] that the one who survived, he survived because at that moment, by chance he was not really in Jasenovac but in the Stara Gradiska [sub-camp] and later he was released in a [prisoner] exchange with the [Communist] Partisans,” he added.
Ivkosic made his comments in an approving review of Igor Vukic’s book ‘Labour Camp Jasenovac’, which airs revisionist theories about the concentration camp.
According to Vukic, Jasenovac was just a labour and punishment camp for enemies of the Croatian state.
Like Slovenian researcher Roman Leljak, Vukic claims the death toll was only around 1,500 during World War II.
But according to the Jasenovac Memorial Site, the Ustasa killed over 83,000 Serbs, Jews, Roma and anti-fascists at the camp between 1941 and 1945.
Croatian public broadcaster HRT has also offered a platform to Vukic to talk about his Jasenovac book.
Speaking at the book presentation on Wednesday, historian Goran Hutinec accused HRT of promoting a book that distorts the truth by selectively cherry-picking information.
“This is not revisionism, but negativism, which is much worse,” Hutinec said.
Jasenovac, Independent State of Croatia – Final Solution of Serbian Question
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.
Unfathomable as that may appear, yes, it was quite possible for the second-ranking slaughterhouse in Europe in recent memory to have slipped off the radar screen. Even such a renowned authority as Professor Gideon Greif is having an exceptionally difficult time of it in trying to put it back on.Precisely because it has not been the theme of any Hollywood spectaculars, Jasenovac does not attract any school excursions and textbooks are largely silent about it. Some background information on Jasenovac therefore seems like a good place to start.The Jasenovac death camp (1941 – 1945) is inextricably bound up with the ...
When it comes to ‘apologising’ for genocides, which it either directly instigated or facilitated through tactical support, the Vatican is a conjurer adept in sleight of words and institutions. You are made to believe that the Vatican has changed; that the Vatican has apologised but then you go through what has been actually said officially and by whom, and you realise that nothing has changed.Take for example the absolutely safe sounding name for one of the oldest congregations in the Vatican — ‘Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’. That is the modern name. The original name? ‘Supreme Sacred Congregation ...
IntroductionThe aim of this article is to shed new light on the question of how the configuration of post-war Central and South-East Europe was shaped during WWII by the USSR through its relations with the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (the CPY). Relationships between the CPY and the Soviet Union in 1941−1945 depended on the concrete military situation in Europe, and on the diplomatic relationships between the Soviet Union and the other members of the anti-fascist Alliance. For that reason, the Soviet Union and the CPY were cooperating in two directions during WWII. The concrete military situation in the battleground of ...
Of the 22 Nazi concentration camps operating in the clerical fascist state of Croatia during World War II, nearly half were under the command of Roman Catholic priests.They were responsible for the grisly slaughter of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. Serbs, Roma, and Jews were specifically targeted for extermination.Catholic clergy was especially keen to eradicate the Serbian Orthodox Church. This led to the murder of Christian Serbian Priests, forced conversions of Serbian Christians, and the destruction of 450 Christian Orthodox Churches during World War II.“Kill all Serbs. And when you finish come here, to the Church, and ...
While the numbers are not as high as Auschwitz or Treblinka, Jasenovac was notorious for its cruelty and the high number of young children who were victims.April 22 is a date that binds two groups of people who shared the same tragic fate. It is the date that commemorates the revolt of the prisoners of Jasenovac, the death camp that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Jews, Serbs and Roma.While the numbers are not as high as Auschwitz or Treblinka, Jasenovac was notorious for its cruelty and the high number of young children who were victims. The saddest ...
In early 1944, Mirjana Babunovic-Dimitrijevic, a 22-year-old middle-class woman living in Sarajevo, was arrested by the Ustasa police. After she was arrested along with her mother and aunt, they were all deported to the Jasenovac concentration camp, for refusing to convert to Catholicism. All three women died there in late 1944.These women were among more than 80,000 victims who perished at Jasenovac between 1941 and 1945. While we don’t know precisely how they died nor what happened during their short lives in the camp, two things are certain.First, their deaths were the direct result of deliberate political decisions. Second, they ...
For the fourth year in a row, representatives of Croatia’s Jewish and Serbian communities, as well as anti-fascists, will boycott the official commemoration of the victims of the World War II concentration camp at Jasenovac on April 14.That means there will again be a separate, unofficial and much more well-attended commemoration for more than 83,000 Serbs, Roma, Jews and anti-fascists killed at the camp by the Croatian WWII fascist Ustasa movement, which will be held at the site on April 12.Representatives of the Roma community, Jasenovac’s second biggest victim group, will again attend both commemorations.For the fourth year in a ...
