Representatives of the Jewish community in Osijek held a commemoration in front of the Mother and Child monument on Thursday to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, observed on 27 January.

Addressing the ceremony, a member of the Jewish Community, Paula Rem, said that there were tendencies in Croatia to deny or downplay the crimes committed during the Holocaust and that antisemitism was present in society.

“That’s why it is important to mark remembrance days such as International Holocaust Remembrance Day,  educate young people and remember all that happened in the past, because that is the only way for society to make progress,” she said.

Rem said that currently there were about 150 Jews in this largest eastern city. Before the Second World War, an estimated 3,000 Jews lived in Osijek, and most of them were taken to the Tenja concentration camp and later to Jasenovac or Auschwitz, where they were killed, she said.