The Jewish community in Croatia numbered some 25,000 members until 1941, of which 23,000 were registered in some 40 municipalities and 2,000 were assimilated, said the president of the Jewish Municipality, Ognjen Kraus. During the Second World War, some 21,000 Croatian Jews were killed. Around 3,000 of slightly more than 11,000 Zagreb Jews survived the war, he added.
Kraus recalled last year's commemoration on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, when it was stated that education, primarily that of young people, was one of the most important duties of the international community in ensuring a better world.
An exhibition by the Investigation and Documentation Centre, featuring some 30 boards with photos of concentration camps, tables with the demographic structure of Croatia's population before and after WWII, copies of victims' documents and Ustasha orders on the persecution of Jews and other statistical data, was staged at the Municipality's gallery "Milan i Ivo Steiner".
The head of the Investigation and Documentation Centre, Melita Svob, said that Croatia lost 20 Jewish municipalities during WWII.
The Croatian Post today issued a commemorative postcard with a text on Holocaust Remembrance Day in Croatian and Hebrew, and special post stamps.
Rabbi Zvi Eliezer Alonie of Germany conducted a prayer for all Holocaust victims, after which a documentary on the destruction of the Zagreb Synagogue was shown.