Serbs and anti-fascists will commemorate victims of the Croatian World War II concentration camp at Jasenovac on Saturday, boycotting the official state commemoration for the third year in a row.
Representatives of Croatia’s Serb community and anti-fascists will commemorate victims of the World War II concentration camp at Jasenovac separately on Saturday and not attend the official event because of allegations that the state has been tolerating historical revisionism about the country’s WWII fascist government.
The Serbian National Council, SNV, and the Alliance of Anti-Fascist Fighters and Anti-Fascists of Croatia are holding Saturday’s commemoration, boycotting the official state event that is scheduled for Sunday.
This is the third year in a row that the majority of the biggest victims’ groups from Jasenovac – Serbs, Jews, Roma and anti-fascists – have boycotted the official commemoration and organised their own.
The boycotts coincide with the rule of two consecutive centre-right governments led by the Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ.
Both governments have been accused of tolerating the allegedly growing historical revisionism within society and downplaying crimes committed by the Croatian WWII fascist Ustasa movement, which ran the Jasenovac camp.
In 2017, the War Veterans’ Ministry granted 5,600 euros for research into archival material on Jasenovac to a Zagreb-based NGO, the Society for Research of the Threefold Jasenovac Camp, which claimed that the Yugoslav Communists established two post-WWII concentration camps on the site of the former Ustasa camp.
This claim is not supported by the vast majority of historical documents and history researchers.
Sasa Milosevic, the SNV’s deputy president, told BIRN that the separate commemoration was an appeal to reverse the prevailing atmosphere in society regarding Jasenovac and Croatia’s Ustasa past.
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