Simon Wiesenthal Centre urges Croatia to ban Jasenovac revisionist works

According to SWC's Director of Eastern European Affairs, Efraim Zuroff, the cause for their reaction is a book event scheduled for later this month in a Zagreb church to promote 'The Jasenovac Lie Revealed' book.

The book is the latest far-right revisionist release which downplays or denies crimes committed by the Ustasha regime at the concentration camp in Jasenovac, and which is freely published and advertised in Croatia. Author of one such book, Igor Vukic, came on a talk show on public broadcaster HRT in May, which drew condemnations by both the Jasenovac memorial centre and Croatian Jewish groups.

The new book, which the Novosti weekly said is co-authored by a member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, mathematician Josip Pecaric, and a Catholic priest Stjepan Razum, is scheduled to be presented in a Jesuit church in central Zagreb, which itself gained some notoriety for holding mass every year marking the anniversary of the 1959 death of the exiled Ustasha regime leader, Ante Pavelic, usually attended by small numbers of far-right supporters.

The book, Zuroff said, aims to deny that mass murders of Serbs, Jews, Roma and Croatian anti-fascists were carried out frequently in the notorious Jasenovac concentration camp. Mainstream consensus is that around 80,000 Jews, Serbs, Roma, and anti-fascist Croats had been killed in the camp set up and controlled by the Ustasha regime during World War II.

In November, the country's Ombudswoman Lora Vidovic warned of increasing attempts by far-right groups to downplay or deny the crimes by the wartime Ustasha regime. In addition, Jewish, Serb, and Roma groups have been boycotting the annual state-sponsored commemoration at the site of the Jasenovac camp, in protest against what they say is failure of state officials to condemn historical revisionism.

"The Society for Research of the Threefold Jasenovac Camp which is sponsoring this event was created to hide the horrendous crimes committed by the Ustasha, which were unparalleled in the Balkans. These crimes are corroborated by historical documents, testimonies of survivors and the scholarly research of numerous reputable historians. Works like The Jasenovac Lie Revealed would immediately be banned in Germany and Austria and rightfully so," Zuroff said.

Mark Weitzman, Director of Government Affairs for the Wiesenthal Center and past Chair of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's Committee on Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial (IHRA) also called on Croatia to prevent historical revisionism.

"As a member of IHRA, Croatia should take all possible steps to prevent Holocaust denial and distortion. The continued positive attention given to efforts to rewrite and distort history in Croatia directly contradicts the international commitment made by Croatia in joining IHRA," Weitzman said.

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