Municipality president Ognjen Kraus recalled the contribution Jews had made to the development and advancement of Zagreb, notably in culture, the economy, science, social activity, and sports.
He also recalled the words of Jewish intellectual Lavoslav Sik, who was killed in the Jasenovac death camp in 1942. Sik said that Zagreb's history could not be written without Jews, while Kraus added that the history Sik had had in mind had not yet been written.
Kraus said the golden times of Zagreb's Jewish community, between the two world wars, had completely disappeared and that Jews should not be the only ones remembering those times.
Kraus declined to speak of the current problems of the Jewish Municipality Zagreb, but did say that it was inappropriate of top state officials to interfere. He said those problems had slowed down the realisation of the Municipality's most important project --the building of a centre and a synagogue on the site of a demolished Jewish temple.
Kraus added the Municipality would evaluate when the time was right to start realising the project and that it would not agree to any compromise.
Speeches were also delivered by Zagreb Rabbi Zvi Eliezer Alonie, Russian Jewish Congress president Moshe Kantour, and European Jewish Congress secretary general Serge Cwaigenbaum, who voiced hope Zagreb's Jewish community would find a way to reunite under the leadership of the Jewish Municipality Zagreb. He said it was not good when such a small community was divided.
Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandic voiced hope the building of the Jewish Centre would start soon, while Deputy Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor thanked the Jewish community for everything they had given Zagreb and Croatia. She commended the dignified manner in which Jews remembered those killed in the Holocaust, saying it should serve as a model for the commemoration of other innocent victims, including those from Croatia's war of independence.