A commemoration of the Kristallnacht pogroms was held in Zagreb on Saturday, the International Day against Fascism and Antisemitism, with participants saying that the tendency to declare certain groups or nations less valuable and thus justify terror against them should be resolutely opposed.

Today marks the anniversary of the Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, the pogrom against the Jews that took place in Nazi Germany and occupied Austria 86 years ago. The commemoration in Zagreb’s Victims of Fascism Square was organised by the Croatian Antifascist League, whose founder and member is the Serb National Council (SNV).

SNV representative Eugen Jakovcic read a message from the president of the Antifascist League, Eugen Pusic, saying that “today’s events in the world show that experiences have evaporated and lessons from history have been forgotten.”

Today’s gathering once again expresses determination in opposing the current tendencies, which have been seen so many times before, such as antisemitism and Islamophobia, which declare members of a certain group or nation less valuable and thus justify terror against them, Pusic wrote.

On the night between 9 and 10 November 1938, in Germany and Austria, synagogues were set on fire, shops were destroyed, and Jews were killed and imprisoned. Vesna Terselic from the Documenta NGO recalled those events as well as the imprisonment, killing and persecution of Jews, Serbs and Roma during the Nazi-allied Ustasha regime in Croatia during the Second World War.

“We are here today not just because we remember what happened on Kristallnacht, but also because we are concerned about antisemitism, Islamophobia and hatred today,” Terselic emphasised, adding that the Ustasha salute “For the Homeland, Ready!” can be seen written on walls in Zagreb and other cities across the country.

“We are all concerned about the attack on foreign workers from Nepal in Split. We are also concerned about the wars that are being fought, about the hostages in Israel and those killed in Gaza. Some of you will talk about the genocide in Gaza, some will not. But it is important that we stand in solidarity with women, children and men, and fight against these wars. We are all concerned about what is happening in Sudan and whether there will be genocide there too,” Terselic said.

Addressing the crowd of about 20 people, actor Vili Matula read an excerpt from the book Escape from the Book by literary historian and critic Antun Barac, who was imprisoned in the Jasenovac and Stara Gradiska concentration camps in 1941 and 1942. Ethnomusicologist and singer Jovana Lukic sang the Sephardic song “Adio querida.”