A Croatian delegation in London, where the second annual International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) meeting is taking place, has confirmed that the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) committed genocide against Serbs, as revealed by “Novosti.”
This occurred on December 2nd when Zagreb representatives presented a plan to improve the Jasenovac Memorial Site in accordance with guidelines issued by the IHRA last year.
These guidelines were the result of a noted dissatisfaction with the state of the memorial site, and in Croatia in general regarding the sites of suffering during World War II, as IHRA delegations observed during their visit a year ago when Croatia hosted the meeting.
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After the presentation by Zagreb representatives, the Austrian delegation asked Croatia directly if it acknowledged the long-proven genocide committed against Serbs in Jasenovac and throughout the territory of the NDH, given that the former director of the memorial site, Ivo Pejaković, resigned after being asked, as he said, not to use the term genocide for Serbian suffering, unlike for Jewish and Roma suffering, Novosti reports.
In response, Sara Lustig, head of the Croatian delegation, stated unequivocally that no one can deny the genocidal nature of the NDH regime and the crimes committed against Serbs. Delegations from the United States, Israel, and Serbia then requested that she repeat this, which she did.
Thus, she officially confirmed Croatia’s position – that the Serbian people living on the territory of the NDH suffered genocide at the hands of that state during its existence, from 1941 to 1945.
Ivo Pejaković, the long-time director of the Jasenovac Memorial Site, resigned several months ago because he did not want to participate in attempts at historical revisionism and debates about whether the Ustase committed genocide against Serbs or “only” crimes.
In November last year, while Croatia still held the IHRA presidency, an exhibition titled “Some Were Neighbors” was supposed to be organized, in co-organization with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and Croatian institutions.
The hosts stubbornly refused to include a panel on the exhibition with the text stating that genocide had been committed against Serbs in the NDH, considering the information from the text, which Pejaković had participated in compiling, as “unnecessary.” The justification was that there was no need to emphasize this since other quisling states also had social groups subjected to terror, and the epilogue was the cancellation of the exhibition and Pejaković’s resignation.
This is a huge turnaround compared to everything that happened during Croatia’s presidency of the IHRA last year, Novosti emphasizes.
Among the recommendations given to official Zagreb at that time, which this initially kept silent from its own public, is a request that the panels in front of the Jasenovac memorial museum clearly show who the victims were and who the perpetrators were, that genocide was committed, who committed it, and that an attempt be made to determine the exact number of victims by name. It was also suggested that Croatia nominate the Stone Flower, a monument by Bogdan Bogdanović at the Jasenovac Memorial Site, for UNESCO protected cultural heritage status.
Gilly Carr, a member of the British delegation, also insisted that new field surveys be carried out and potential mass graves or other historical artifacts be found.
Historians are also not convinced of the existence of remains of mass graves, covered with lime, as this area has often been flooded, but there may be remains of camp life, or objects from the daily lives of the inmates, and perhaps even weapons and tools with which they were tortured. It was also requested that all camps in the NDH be mapped.
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Source: B92, Photo: Wikimedia Creative Commons