Member of Parliament representing the Roma ethnic minority, Veljko Kajtazi, said on Thursday that he would take part in both remembrance ceremonies at the site of the World War II concentration camp in Jasenovac in central Croatia.
He was asked about his plans after various groups representing antifascists and ethnic Jewish and Serb minorities said they would boycott the official state-sponsored annual ceremony to mark the April 1945 breakout when 54 prisoners escaped.
Kajtazi added that the Roma community would organise their own memorial ceremony in the village of Ustica near Jasenovac on August 2, the location of a wartime camp for Roma people set up and run by the Croatian fascist Ustashe regime.
“Of course, I will be there on both Saturday and Sunday. And I also expect everybody else to attend the August 2 commemoration ceremony organised by the national Roma community. Everybody keeps talking about us separating ourselves, but truth of the matter is that others keep separating us from the rest,” Kajtazi told reporters.
He said that nearly 17,000 Roma people had been murdered at Ustica during World War II.
“That’s one of the reasons why the Culture Minister said that in cooperation with the government we want to build a memorial to mark that place, because I think Roma victims deserve it. More than 70 years had to pass for us to start talking about the way Roma people had perished,” Kajtazi said.
VEZANE VIJESTI
The largest antifascist group SABA and the man group representing ethnic Serbs, the Serb National Council (SNV), announced earlier this week they would hold a memorial ceremony on Saturday, April 21, while the Jewish community held its own remembrance event earlier this month. All three said they would not attend the official event scheduled for Sunday, April 23, in protest against what they say is the government’s tacit approval of the use of World War II-era fascist slogans and rhetoric by some Croatian right wing groups.
