A commemoration for children killed in an Ustasha-run concentration camp in Jastrebarsko was held in the town on Monday to mark the 77th anniversary of the liberation of the camp.

Wreaths were laid and candles lit at a memorial by surviving inmates, relatives and members of antifascist organisations.

Ivan Fumic said on behalf of the SABA association of antifascist fighters and antifascists “the innocent Serb children killed in the Jastrebarsko camp are a lasting disgrace of the Ustasha regime” and that they should be remembered “to serve in the fight against any extremism.”

He accused the incumbent government of “acting as though Hitler and (Ante) Pavelic won, instead of the antifascist movement.” Pavelic was the head of the WWII Nazi-styled Independent State of Croatia.

“In Croatia we still have divisions and the cleansing of Serbs continues. That’s unacceptable and we must fight against that,” Fumic said. He called out Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic for talking about recent attacks on Serbs as “sporadic cases”, saying his government “tolerates fascist divisions, in which they are helped by the Catholic Church with all its strength.”

The chairman of SABA’s Zagreb branch, Petar Raic, said 3,166 children were detained at the Jastrebarsko camp in “disastrous” conditions and that at least 449 were killed by the end of October 1942. He said the Partisans liberated 727 children from the camp on 26 October 1942.