At a ceremony in memory of victims of Nazism, the President of Croatia showed a master class in hypocrisy
The President of Croatia simultaneously managed to call the Ustaše, shot by partisans in 1945, “victims of a war crime” and called for the dismantling and throwing away of the memorial plaque of their ideological heirs – the non-Ustaše of the 90s, which aroused the anger of “conservatives” and “veterans”.
The Croatian press reported this, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
On the 75th anniversary of the escape of the last 600 prisoners from the Ustashe Jasenovac camp, the country's leadership for the first time held a ceremony together with the ideological and ethnic descendants of those who were systematically and brutally exterminated in this camp: representatives of the Serbian, Jewish, Roma communities, as well as anti-fascist organizations.
In previous years, organizations of ethnic and political minorities refused to take part jointly in mourning ceremonies, performed for show for Croatia's Western patrons, with the previous ruling elite of the state, which did not hide its pro-Ustashe sympathies.
After the victory of Social Democrat Zoran Milanović in the recent presidential elections, the xenophobic and revanchist rhetoric of Croatian politics began to fade, and the leaders of ethnic communities and anti-fascist organizations responded to the invitation of the Croatian leadership to jointly participate in the remembrance ceremony.
Andrej Plenkovic, Zoran Milanovic and Gordan Jandrokovic return from the ceremony in Jasenovac
The laying of flowers at the Memorial to the victims of the Jasenov concentration camp on the part of the Croatian state was attended by the President of the country Zoran Milanović, Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, Speaker of Parliament Goran Jandroković, on the part of the minorities - the head of the local Serbian National Council Milorad Pupovac, the head of the Jewish Community of Croatia Ognjen Kraus, parliamentary lawyer of the Roma national minority Veljko Kaytazi and chairman of the Union of Anti-Fascist Fighters Franjo Khabulin.
“I came to extend my hand and show goodwill, to show that I am ready for serious discussions on the situation in Croatia and the government's attitude towards Croatian history,” Ognjen Kraus commented on his participation in the ceremony. – I am interested in the results in order to finally dot the i’s with regard to attempts to revise history, and finally begin to comply with the laws and constitution of Croatia. And I, of course, will not be here, and no one from the Jewish community will be here next year, if nothing changes in a year…. But on a positive note, I would like to note that the Ministry of Culture and Education has included a visit to Jasenovac in the school curriculum.”
Ognjen Kraus at the ceremony in Jasenovac
However, judging by the half-hearted and ambiguous statements of the Croatian president, it can be assumed that it is unlikely to expect radical changes in the course of the Croatian state.
In particular, answering a journalist’s question about his attitude towards the memorial plaque to the right-wing radical militants HOS (Croatian Defense Forces), which was installed on the territory of the Jasenovac Memorial (in the 90s, they first destroyed it, destroying many valuable historical documents, then held the line against the attacking units of the JNA and Serbian militias), and then with a scandal it was moved to the city of Novska.
Zoran Milanovic replied that “it needs to be removed or thrown away somewhere, because it has nothing to do with the Patriotic War.”
Militants of the “Black Legion” HOS
“President Tudjman himself (the leader of the Croatian separatists and the first president of Croatia) was just about to integrate these paramilitary forces into the regular army and achieved success in 1991,” recalled the Croatian president. - Anyone who thinks that during the Patriotic War he fought under the slogan “Ready for the Fatherland!” (Za dom spremni! - the Ustasha motto of the Second World War, which became the slogan of the HOS militants - ed.) only for Croatia, should know that he fought for the restoration of the state created in 1941 (the puppet Independent Croatian Power of the Third Reich - ed.)" .
And in these words of Milanovic one can see an outright manipulation of facts. Thus, it was the HOS, as the paramilitary core of the Croatian Party of Law, that became one of the active instigators of the “Patriotic War”, as well as its most ideological and combat-ready units. And only in November 1991, due to their uncontrollability and unwillingness to obey a single command, they were beheaded and joined the ranks of the 109 and 114 brigades of the National Guard, within which they continued their bloody work.
Neo-ustasi at a ceremony in Bleiburg
Milanović demonstrated a rather flexible position when answering the question about possible participation in the commemoration of the “victims of Bleiburg” (the mass execution by Yugoslav partisans in 1945 on the territory of Austria of Croatian and Slovenian collaborators - Ustaše and Domobran), which was canceled this year due to the quarantine in Bleiburg, and will now take place at the Mirogoj cemetery in Zagreb.
“I have never gone and will not go there, my position is known,” replied the Croatian leader. – I was there in 2008. This is a war crime, extremely serious, even without going into the context of why it was committed…. But it’s one thing to remember the victims, and another thing when this commemoration turns into politics (memory of the “victims of Bleiburg” has long become a fetish for Croatian neo-Ustashes and the former leadership of Croatia regularly visited Bleiburg - ed.).”
When asked about the activities of revisionist organizations and researchers who, operating under the roof of the Ministry of Veterans Affairs, produce “research” that Jasenovac was not a death camp, but an ordinary labor camp, Milanović cautiously replied that he did not think that “there would be It is good to encourage such ideological warfare and equate it with research to bring out the truth.”
Former Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic lays flowers at the monument to the Nazis killed in 1945 in Bleiburg
However, veterans, their numerous associations and right-wing radical and conservative parties did not appreciate their president’s caution and in an uncompromising form demanded that he apologize for his words about the HOS memorial plaque.
Let us recall that on April 22, 1945, having information about the approaching units of the Yugoslav partisans and the plans of the administration of the Jasenovac camp to kill the remaining prisoners, in the morning 600 of them decided to break through to leave this terrible place - only a hundred managed to do this.
Croatian right-wing radicals demand an apology from Zoran Milanovic
The Jasenovac concentration camp system was created in the Independent Croatian Power for the targeted extermination of Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and anti-fascist communists, and was one of the most brutal concentration camp systems operating in Europe: people here were not gassed, shot or hanged, but were destroyed exclusively with cold steel, killed with various in savage ways, they starved.
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