April 10, 2021- The Documenta Centre for Dealing with the Past on Saturday organized a tour of Zagreb locations linked to suffering in WWII, starting outside the building of the USKOK anti-fraud office to prompt USKOK to put up an information plaque on the building from which, it said, "the Holocaust and the NDH started."

On 10 April 1941, Slavko Kvaternik proclaimed the NDH (Independent State of Croatia) in that building which then housed Radio Zagreb.

"The NDH was responsible for the Holocaust against Jews, the genocide against Serbs and Roma. We think it's essential that new generations in particular, as well as all those passing this building, know what happened inside," Documenta head Vesna Teršelič said before this, the second memorial walk.

Documenta expects USKOK to put up the plaque and the City of Zagreb to mark the locations of suffering and resistance so that new generations can learn what a criminal regime the NDH was, that the Nazis and fascists appointed its head Ante Pavelić and that it was a regime of terror, Teršelič said.

"That was a regime of which we are ashamed today, and this shame should be an important part of our identity because the condemnation of those crimes should be the starting point of our thinking and discussions," she said.

It is very important that all generations resolutely condemn the Ustasha crimes and the criminal NDH, which includes banning the "For the homeland ready" salute and Ustasha insignia, she added.

Teršelič said the ruling majority's will was necessary to ban the salute and that the ruling majority should do so this year.

Puhovski: Who is ashamed of our history is a moral idiot

Žarko Puhovski, a political analyst, said Pavelić was one of the most significant Croats in history and that "who doesn't understand that doesn't understand Croatian history, and who isn't ashamed of that is a moral idiot."

Puhovski, whose initiative for USKOK to put up the plaque on its building, said there were still many people who were not ashamed, adding that one could not take from history only what one liked.

He said Croatia's present-day stand on the NDH "is neutral as much as possible and negative when it must be."

A legal ban of the Ustasha salute is pointless as long as "we have the Ustasha kuna," he said, referring to the name of the national currency, the kuna.

The building housing USKOK is linked to another historic day, 8 May 1945, when the Partisan army entered Zagreb and sent its forces to Radio Zagreb to announce that "the glorious units of the Yugoslav army" had entered the capital, Documenta said, adding that the third memorial walk would be held on 8 May.

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ZAGREB, 27 March 2021- A memorial tour of Zagreb sites associated with the Nazi-allied Ustasha regime that ruled Croatia during the Second World War was organized on Saturday ahead of the 80th anniversary of the start of the war in the country.

The topic of anti-fascist resistance is not represented enough in school, even though topics relating to the Ustashas and Partisans are frequent in political and social life, said Tena Banjeglav, one of the authors of the guide "Zagreb in War, Resistance, Artistic Creation and Memory" who took part in the tour.

Students know little about what was going on in Zagreb during Ustasha rule and never heard of most of the 50 locations in the city associated with the Ustasha regime. This guide should help them learn more about the sites such as the present-day Student Centre and the secondary school in Križanićeva Street, Banjeglav told the press.

The Student Centre was a transit campsite where about 2,500 Jews and many Serbs and communists were held before being transported onto the camps at Koprivnica, Gospić, Jadovno, Pag island Jasenovac.

Because of the restrictions in place to contain the coronavirus pandemic, only 25 people took part in the tour - teachers, students, diplomats, and university professors. MP Vili Matula joined them.

The head of the Documenta NGO, Vesna Teršelič, said she was pleased that they were joined by the Austrian ambassador and officials of the US Embassy, which helped prepare the guide and the Australian Embassy.

She announced that the next memorial walks would be held on 10 April, the day on which the Ustasha-ruled Independent State of Croatia (NDH) was proclaimed in 1941, and on 8 May, the day of the liberation of Zagreb in 1945. She invited members of the public to sign up for the tour.

Teršelič said that the guide would be formally launched online on 6 April at 11 am when the Second World War began.

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