ZAGREB, July 2, 2019 - Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandić said on Tuesday that the monument to be erected in Zagreb to commemorate Holocaust victims would be in line with the project design that had been selected as the best, adding that the inscription on the monument would "say what it should say."
"The monument project that has won the tender will be installed at the selected location. We will do it and we owe it to all Holocaust victims," Bandić said.
He added that the inscription on the monument would say "what it should say" and that talks on the matter were proceeding as planned.
"Croatia will decide on the matter on its own and no one will set any conditions to it," he said.
Work on installing the monument, designed by Dalibor Stošić and Krešimir Rogina, has not begun yet and the city authorities plan to erect the memorial near the Central Railway Station in Branimirova Street in tribute to the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, with the message that the past must not repeat itself.
The Jewish Community of Zagreb (ŽOZ) recently condemned the decision by the Zagreb City Assembly to erect the monument.
The World Jewish Congress joined ŽOZ in denouncing the decision, saying that its purpose is to conceal the truth about the killings of Jews in the Ustasha-ruled Independent State of Croatia (NDH). Israeli Ambassador Ilan Mor has criticised the decision as well.
ŽOZ and the WJC believe that the decision aims to conceal the crimes of the Ustasha by giving the false impression that Nazi Germany alone was responsible for the horrors of the Holocaust.
Mor has said that although the idea to commemorate the Jews who perished in the Holocaust is always a positive sign, it is also important that every country in which Jews were murdered face its own history without trying to embellish it.
More info about Holocaust in Croatia can be found in the Politics section.
