ZAGREB, 28 July 2022 - Croatia's Ambassador to Belgrade, Hidajet Biščević, has said that the recent plans for Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić's visit to Jasenovac, the site of a WW2 concentration camp, disrespected diplomatic procedure but that the visit was not banned, contrary to the prevailing perception in Serbia.

"Concerning the reportedly planned private visit of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić to Jasenovac, it is important to understand that standard diplomatic procedure were not respected," Biščević explained in an interview with the Belgrade-based NIN weekly newspaper.

"Croatia has nothing against (Vučić's) visit to Jasenovac. Croatia defined its attitude towards Jasenovac a long time ago and reiterated it many times by paying tribute to the victims and condemning the atrocities committed there," Biščević said, adding that the visit would be possible when the conditions were met so that it did not cause new polarisation but rather contributed to strengthening mutual understanding while taking into account reciprocity.

The ambassador warned that former Croatian inmates of prison camps in Vojvodina, where they had been taken by Serb forces from Croatia during the Homeland War in the early 1990s, had been denied the opportunity to visit the sites of those camps for years.

Biščević noted that Croatia and Serbia live and will probably continue to live in parallel histories for a long time to come, stressing at the same time that the politicisation of victims perpetuates the vicious circle of bilateral relations and that both countries should make an effort to end it, recalling the way France and Germany did it.

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ZAGREB, 17 July 2022 - Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić's intention to come on an announced, private visit to Jasenovac is against the protocols, because a head of state is a protected person, and visits by presidents require official preparations, Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Grlić Radman said on Sunday.

The Croatian Foreign and European Affairs Ministry sent a protest note to Belgrade on Friday over this case, the minister told the press outside the ministry's building today.

The protocol has been violated, said Grlić Radman elaborating that visits by presidents and office-holders must be announced to the host country and require planning for weeks and months.

Making an appointment for a visit by foreign officials implies that the time frame, the character, and program of the visit should be a subject matter of official communication and the outcome of the agreement by both sides, the minister said reading excerpts from Croatia's protest note.

Following Croatia's demarche, Serbia's authorities tried to hand their protest note to the chargé d'affaires in Croatia's embassy in Belgrade, however, she refused to receive it, the Croatian minister said.

He said that Croatia had invested a lot of effort in the improvement of the dialogue with Belgrade, however, there has been no sincere response from the other side.

Croatia's refusal to allow Vučić to pay a private and impromptu visit in such a way to Jasenovac caused an uproar among Serbian officials, who are close aides to Vučić.

Grlić Radman believes that the issue of Vučić's possible visit to Jasenovac, a WW2 concentration camp, had been made topical in Belgrade for the sake of the ongoing talks on forming the new Serbian government. 

He also sees this as Belgrade's attempt to blur unresolved issues stemming from the Homeland War and Croatia's insistence on answers from Serbia about what happened with 1,834 unaccounted-for people who went missing in that war.

The Jutarnji List daily reported that Vučić had contacted Croatian Serb leader Milorad Pupovac to tell him that he would arrive in Jasenovac from Bosnia and Herzegovina where he planned to visit the Serb entity.

According to the Zagreb-based daily newspaper, Pupovac conveyed that information to Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, and the government found Vučić's plan to dodge the appropriate protocols outrageous.

Grlić Radman today declined to confirm or refuse the claims about Vučić's attempt to implicate the SDSS party leader Pupovac in this affair.

The Jutarnji List daily also comments that Vučić's intention to come on such an impromptu visit to Jasenovac and Pakrac, without official notification to Croatia's authorities and circumventing the embassy is perceived as his attempt to play a role of a victim, who is allegedly denied access to Croatia, ahead of the anniversary of the 1995 Operation Storm and to provoke Croatia's authorities.

Croatia criticizes Serbia's authorities for avoiding the official channels for providing information about plans for Vučić's arrival.

"We see it as ill-intentioned and not as a sincere visit or sincere act of paying respect to victims," Grlić Radman said.

Ex-president says Vučić is lying for propaganda purpose

Following this entanglement about Vučić's plans for paying a visit to Jasenovac and his claim that not any of the previous Serbian presidents had ever been to Jasenovac, former President Boris Tadić told local media outlets that this was a morbid lie made by Vučić. 

Tadić recalled that in 2010 he had visited Jasenovac and Jadovno, two sites of the suffering of ethnic Serbs in World War Two in Croatia, and accused Vučić of exploiting war victims for his propaganda purposes and for satisfying his personal ambitions.

Tadić said that the difference between Vučić and him was the fact that he had not made use of his visits to such sites for one-upmanship or for inciting hatred and fake patriotism.

For more, check out our politics section.

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.

For more, check out our politics section.

ZAGREB, 27 Jan 2022 - Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said on Thursday that on International Holocaust Remembrance Day one should also remember the infamous Ustasha concentration camps, primarily Jasenovac, where thousands of Jews, Serbs, Roma, and Croatian antifascists and democrats were killed.

"Jasenovac is a painful and tragic part of Croatian history, and a lasting memory and strong condemnation of that crime are part of our culture of remembrance," Plenković said at a cabinet meeting.

He said 7,500 Auschwitz inmates were liberated on 27 January 1945 and that 1.1 million people were killed in that concentration camp, including nearly a million Jews.

As the most infamous concentration camp, Auschwitz is synonymous with the most horrific crimes and the gravest suffering of the Jewish people as well as with the systematic destruction of other ethnic groups persecuted by the Nazi regime. 

Under that regime, the world witnessed the persecution and genocide of more than 11 million people in Europe since 1933, including six million Jews, of whom 1.5 million were children.

Those are horrifying numbers of one of the worst crimes in the history of humankind, Plenković said.

Intolerance and hate are increasingly present in the world and our society

Today tribute is also being paid to the 112 Croatian Righteous among the Nations who, with their courage and humanity, opposed evil and risked their own lives to save another.

The 2005 UN resolution which designated International Holocaust Remembrance Day rejects any Holocaust denial and unreservedly condemns all forms of religious intolerance, incitement, harassment, or violence against persons or communities on ethnic or religious grounds, Plenković said.

"The day when we remember the Holocaust victims is also the day when we should think about the world we live in, including the circumstances in Croatia," he said, adding that, unfortunately, intolerance, the denial of historical facts, discrimination, and hate speech are increasingly present in the world as well as in Croatian society.

"Those are bad and harmful trends and we should fight against them. Such rhetoric should be clearly condemned and the judicial authorities should punish it in line with the legislative framework. The victims we are remembering today are a reminder and a warning of the dimensions of evil which can come out of hate and totalitarian ideologies," Plenković said.

For more, check out our dedicated politics section.

ZAGREB, 23 April, 2021 - Israeli Ambassador Ilan Mor has said in an interview with Hina that the Ustasha salute 'For the homeland ready' cannot simultaneously be a symbol of heroism and a symbol of evil, and pointed out the good example set by Germany and Austria where the glorification of Nazism is punishable by law.

The issue of the said salute used by Ustasha, allies of the German Nazis in the Second World War, is raised every April, when Croatia observes anniversaries of the breakout of inmates from the Ustasha-run concentration camp in Jasenovac in late April in 1945. The 1941-1945 Jasenovac camp was a site of torture and mass executions of ethnic Serbs, Jews, Roma and of Croats who opposed Nazism and Fascism.

Since the 1991-1995 Homeland War, the controversial salute, whose abbreviation in Croatian is ZDS, has been permissible at commemorations of fallen defenders who used to be members of the HOS unit and who had that salute on their uniforms during that war of independence. On the other hand, for years, Jewish associations have continued requesting that the use of the salute should be outlawed, just as in the case of "Heil Hitler" salute, as its use carries a prison sentence in Germany and Austria.

"In Vukovar, the 'Za Dom Spremni' salute is considered to be part of heroism of the place, fighting against occupier and in Jasenovac  'Za Dom Spremni' is symbol of evil. So, you have to decide, it can't be the same symbol for totally different points in your history," says the ambassador after he yesterday participated in the commemorations on the occasion of the 76th anniversary of the breakout of inmates from the Jasenovac death camp.

Jewish rep expects legislative changes penalising Ustasha salute to be passed by summer

The head of the Coordinating Committee of the Jewish Communities of Croatia, Ognjen Kraus, said on Thursday there was a realistic possibility for the parliament to vote in amendments to the Penal Code to penalise the use of the Ustasha salute "For the homeland ready" before its summer recess.

"I believe that there will be no problems in voting the changes in if the Prime Minister and the HDZ mean what they say," Kraus said when asked about the possibility of outlawing the Ustasha salute, an initiative he launched earlier this year.

Commenting on this statement, Ambassador Mor says: "You have to do something about it. I am not a lawyer, i am not Croat and can't give you 'yes' or 'no' (on imposing a prison sentence for that salute). In this case, Germany and Austria are very good role model."

Ambassador warns of attempts to downplay the Holocaust

Commenting on some global trends of downplaying the tragedy of the Holocaust, Mor said that a portion of the Croatian society used every opportunity to glorify the Ustasha troops and Ustasha leader Ante Pavelić.

 As if nothing had happened, as if Jasenovac had not been an extermination camp but a labour camp. This is in contradiction with historical facts and the testimonies by those who survived that period, the ambassador said.

Mor went on to say that historians in Croatia and Serbia disagreed about the numbers of Serb victims in Jasenovac, and he said that it was unacceptable to reduce such a tragedy to the issue of numbers.

"If you want to live in peace, you have to do more then producing movies, you have to have real dialogue," he said alluding also to the recent Serbian film ("Dara iz Jasenovca") about this topic which has been perceived in Croatia as well as internationally as part of the nationalistic propaganda of Serbia's authorities.

Mor urged both Croatia and Serbia to let their archives be available to experts and so that they can arrive at a point acceptable to both sides.

The same should be applied when it comes to Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac, he said and called for resorting to dialogue to overcome different views on the events in the past.

In this context he mentioned the normalisation of the relations between his country and several Arab countries. Following the 1979 peace agreement with Egypt and the 1994 peace agreement with Jordan, Israel has renewed relations with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco in the past few months.

For more about politics in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

ZAGREB, 22 April, 2021 - Prime Minister Andrej Plenković on Thursday strongly condemned the atrocities committed against 17,000 ethnic Roma during the 1941-1945 Independent State of Croatia (NDH), while he paid a visit to the Roma Memorial Centre in Uštica, situated near Jasenovac.

This centre is in memory of nearly 17,000 Roma killed in the war and we condemn the crimes committed during the NDH regime, Plenković said after visiting the memorial complex.

Plenković and the government's delegation held a wreath-laying ceremony at the Uštica cemetery for Roma victims.

The Roma Memorial Center was built to permanently commemorate ethnic Roma members killed in the genocide committed by the Nazi and Ustasha regimes during World War II.

Plenković recalled that this memorial complex was unique in Europe, and that the construction of the centre had cost eight million kuna, and that the Croatian government had covered nearly 90% of those costs.

According to the Croatian premier, in this way, a contribution was made to efforts to enable dignified marking of the suffering of ethnic Roma in Croatia and to build a memorial centre where all others can come to pay tribute to war victims.

The parliamentary deputy of ethnic Roma, Veljko Kajtazi, said that constructing this memorial centre was the least one could do for killed Roma.

He also called on Roma from other parts of Europe and the world to visit this centre and thus pay tribute to war victims.

The Uštica memorial centre was officially opened last August, and its formal opening coincided with the occasion of Roma Holocaust Memorial Day, or the Samudaripen, observed on August 2.

This memorial complex is set up in Uštica, located about 110km southeast of Zagreb, which used to be the site of mass executions of Roma who were deported to the Jasenovac concentration camp during the Second World War. The Memorial Centre includes a cemetery with 21 mass graves.

For more about politics in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

ZAGREB, 22 April, 2021 - Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said on Thursday that the WW2 Nazi-style Independent State of Croatia (NDH) was one of the most tragic periods in Croatian history and added that the government was clearly against the use of Ustasha symbols.

The prime minister made this statement on the occasion of the 76th anniversary anniversary of the breakout of inmates of from the Ustasha-run World War II concentration camp Jasenovac.

Plenković laid a wreath, and on this occasion he was accompanied by the three deputy prime ministers Tomo Medved, Davor Božinović and Boris Milošević and several ministers.

He underscored that they came to pay tribute to all victims of the NDH regime and the horrific crimes committed in the Jasenovac concentration camp and other camps against Jews, Serbs, Roma, Croat antifascists and democrats.

"That is certainly one of the most tragic periods in Croatian history and it is important that young new generations of today are aware of these facts, (...) that this is a part of our education system and that all generations never forget the terrible crimes that were committed here and across Europe in similar camps during World War II, and that there is general and unequivocal condemnation of those crimes," the prime minister said.

He added that he would continue to come to Jasenovac with piety and awareness that we must not allow such crimes ever happen again.

As for amending the Criminal Code to ban Ustasha insignia, Plenković said that they were already banned and that it was a question of aligning action with court practice.

"This topic has been with us for a long time. Everyone who knows something about our history, about the Jasenovac camp, who understand what those symbols mean for members of the Jewish people, members of Serbs, Roma, antifascists, understands that these are not symbols to be used," Plenković said.

Regarding the initiative of the president of the Coordination of Jewish Communities in Croatia, Ognjen Kraus, to ban the Ustasha salute "For the homeland ready", he said that they had talked about it and would continue to discuss it. Also, he said that the position of the government was clear and firm when it came to condemning crimes and such symbols.

He denied claims by the Jewish representative that not enough had been done on the issue.

For more about politics in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

ZAGREB, 21 April, 2021 - Commenting on a commemoration for the Jasenovac victims and his non-acceptance of President Zoran Milanović's invitation to pay tribute to them together on Thursday, PM Andrej Plenković has said the Public Health Institute has recommended that visiting delegations pay tribute successively.

Addressing a news conference on Wednesday, Plenković clarified his recent statements on the topic.

"I was referring to my position on the president's office contacting the government and parliament to lay wreaths together. I made it clear that there is no reason to put on an act and that the government and the parliament will lay their wreaths on their own. There is no need to fake friendship, cooperation or unity considering what has been said and what has happened," Plenković said.

There will be no joint wreaths because "that is something that we benevolently wanted and attempted to do several times," he said, recalling that President Milanović laid a wreath in Vukovar on Vukovar Remembrance Day on his own.

Plenković added that the Jasenovac Memorial Area had scheduled visits by five different delegations, of the government, parliament, the office of the president, the victim peoples and foreign embassies, who were all given different time slots.

"We have gone there for years, and will go in the years to come. Not to spend time in somebody's company there but to pay tribute to the victims of the Ustasha camp of Jasenovac," said Plenković.

For more about politics in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

ZAGREB, 20 April, 2021 - There will be no joint commemoration for victims of the World War II concentration camp Jasenovac on Thursday, representatives of the victims will lay wreaths separately from the state leadership while President Zoran Milanović will do so separately from the prime minister and parliament speaker.

President Milanović's spokesman Nikola Jelić confirmed to Hina that Milanović and his delegation will lay wreaths at the Stone Flower monument at Jasenovac at 11 a.m. on Thursday.

Office of the President did not receive reply from gov't, parliament

"President Zoran Milanović and his delegation will pay tribute to the Jasenovac victims on 22 April, at 11 a.m., as agreed with the organiser, the Public Institution Jasenovac Memorial Area," Jelić said.

He added that the Office of the President had not received a reply from the government or the parliament to its invitation to pay tribute to the Jasenovac victims together.

"As early as last Friday the President of the Republic proposed to the Prime Minister and the Parliament Speaker that they all pay tribute to the Jasenovac victims together, but we have not received any reply," Jelić said.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said today that a government delegation would lay a wreath at Jasenovac at 9 a.m., again dismissing the possibility of paying tribute together with Milanović, noting that "there is no reason for us to put on an act."

"As regards any joint laying of wreaths or flowers, I said yesterday.... there will be no putting on an act," he told reporters during a visit to Rijeka.

Plenković: We were not the ones to start with insults

"The President of the Republic or his staff are now launching an initiative for the Parliament Speaker and myself to lay a wreath with him in Jasenovac. We were not the ones to start with the 'animal farm', we were not the ones to start with insults or a number of other things that are most inappropriate, so there is no reason to put on an act, let that be clear to everyone," said Plenković.

He added that the organiser of the commemoration was the Jasenovac Memorial Area, not the government or anyone else, and that this year's commemoration would be held in line with epidemiological restrictions.

The government's delegation will arrive at 9 a.m. and the parliament's delegation at 10 a.m., he said.

"This has nothing to do with representatives of the victim ethnic groups. We met with them last week, we hold meetings regularly, we respect the victims and went to Jasenovac in the past four years as well. We will go this year again, next year, in 2023, 2024. This has to do with the protocol, but putting on an act is out of the question," he said.

Reporters asked Plenković if he should ignore his relationship with Milanović, regardless of how bad it may be, in situations such as commemorations, to which he said: "No, there's no need for that. In this case it is not envisaged and is out of the question."

Representatives of Serbs, Jews, Roma and antifascists to form separate delegation

The Serb National Council (SNV) said earlier in the day that representatives of ethnic groups that were victims of the Ustasha terror would have a separate, four-member delegation in Jasenovac.

SNV president Milorad Pupovac, the leader of the Coordinating Committee of the Jewish Communities of Croatia, Ognjen Kraus, Roma association "Kali Sara" representative Veljko Kajtazi, and the leader of the SABA association of antifascist fighters and antifascists, Franjo Habulin, will lay a joint wreath at the Stone Flower monument at noon on Thursday.

Kraus confirmed to Hina that this decision was made yesterday, after it became evident that there would be no joint delegation comprising top state officials.

"After we realised that there would be separate delegations, we decided on a separate delegation as well. As you can see, a single delegation does not depend on us. We cannot support the use of commemorations for political one-upmanship," said Kraus.

For more about politics in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

ZAGREB, April 22, 2020 - The head of the Jewish Community of Zagreb, Ognjen Kraus, said on Wednesday that his attendance at a state-level commemoration for the victims of the Jasenovac concentration camp was an act of readiness to cooperate with the government in dealing with issues that harm Croatia's international reputation.

"I came to extend the hand of friendship and good will and to show that I'm prepared for serious talks on the situation in Croatia and the government's attitude to history," Kraus told reporters covering the event commemorating the 75th anniversary of a breakout of inmates from the World War II Ustasha-run concentration camp.

Kraus confirmed that he saw some progress in the government's attitude to history but that he was more interested in results.

"I'm more interested in results, in finally doing away with the issue of insignia, the issue of historical revisionism and everything that disgraces this country, and I want us to finally start respecting its laws and constitution," said Kraus, noting that he would not attend the state-level commemoration next year if no changes happened by then.

He added that some progress had been made, notably by the ministries of culture and education and that student visits to Jasenovac had been included in school curricula for this year.

A member of the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS), Boris Milošević, said in parliament today that his party was glad that this year a single commemoration was taking place after separate commemorations in the past few years.

He said that the joint commemoration was an act of good will but that that did not mean "giving up the fight against historical revisionism and negation of crimes."

Hrvoje Zekanović of the Croatian Sovereigntists party remarked that one should learn the real and full truth about Jasenovac but that he would also like all participants in the Jasenovac commemoration to start having a proper attitude to the crimes committed in Škabrnja, Vukovar and Bleiburg.

The head of the SABA association of antifascist fighters, Franjo Habulin, said that some progress had been made in the authorities' attitude to antifascism and victims of fascism even though problems accumulated over the past 30 years were not being dealt with at the pace at which SABA would want them to be dealt with.

Habulin recalled that last year's commemoration of the Battle of Sutjeska was held under the prime minister's auspices and that the prime minister delivered very strong messages while opening an exhibition on the Holocaust in Zagreb earlier this year.

Habulin said that this year funds had been secured for visits by 200 classes to Jasenovac and that next year student visits to Jasenovac should become an obligatory part of the history curriculum for all schools.

Activists of the non-parliamentary Workers' Front (RF) party on Wednesday night paid tribute to the Jasenovac victims at a ceremony held near Zagreb's central railway station.

The activists screened an image of the Jasenovac Stone Flower monument and the number of the camp's victims on a locomotive put on display by the central station. The locomotive was used by the Ustasha regime for the transport of people to concentration camps, the RF said.

The party said its commemoration for the 83,145 victims of the camp and its inmates who in 1945 mounted an escape attempt was a symbolic contribution to the culture of remembrance and the fight against historical revisionism, an example of which, it said, was the fact that there was no description of the history of the locomotive on it but only technical details.

More Jasenovac news can be found in the Politics section.