ZAGREB, 22 April (2022) - President Zoran Milanović on Friday held a separate commemoration at the Jasenovac concentration camp site on the occasion of the 77th anniversary of Jasenovac Breakout Day.
The breakout was made on the morning of 22 April 1945 by the last 600 prisoners and about 100 survived.
The Jasenovac Memorial Centre has documented the names and details of 83,145 people killed at Jasenovac where the Nazi-style Ustasha regime had run the camp for 1,337 days during the Second World War. Most of victims were ethnic Serbs (47.627), Roma (16.173) and Jews (13.116).
During his commemorative event held at 9 am Friday, Milanović laid flowers and pebbles in front of the centre's monument "A Stone Flower".
On Thursday, commenting on the planned separate commemoration, Milanović said that he would go there with his aides rather than with government officials, whom he accused of encouraging Ustasha-related outbursts and then pretending to be liberals.
Friday's commemorative ceremony, which is being organised by the Memorial Centre, will be attended by government officials and representatives of the Antifascist Alliance and the Serb and Roma minorities, while the Jewish community, dissatisfied with the authorities' treatment of the Ustasha salute and insignia, will again organise a separate commemoration a few days later.
Milanović said that he would join the Jewish community in its commemorative event on 28 April.
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