CROATIAN DELEGATION ATTENDS ANNIVERSARY OF MAUTHAUSEN DEATH CAMP LIBERATION

MAUTHAUSEN, May 9 (Hina) - Respects were paid and wreaths were laid by the main monument to the victims of Nazism in Mauthausen, Austria, on Sunday to mark the 59th anniversary of the liberation of the Mauthausen death camp.#L# In attendance were 10,000 people from nearly 40 countries. The Croatian delegation, led by parliament deputy speaker Darko Milinovic, included representatives of the Croatian embassy in Austria, the Association of Homeland War Volunteers and Veterans, the Coordinating Body of Homeland War Associations, and the Alliance of Anti-Fascist Fighters and Anti-Fascists of Croatia. Milinovic said in his address suffering must not be forgotten, that anti-fascism was universal and a constituent element of every democracy, including Croatia. "Croatia and all of its political factors are resolute in their condemnation of every form of extremism, racism, intolerance, radicalism, and nationalism, regardless of their sources and proponents," he said after laying a wreath by a plaque Croatia put on the Mauthausen Weeping Wall in 2001. The Mauthausen concentration camp was set up in 1938. Before American troops liberated it on 5 May 1945 about 200,000 inmates were detained there. Half died. (Hina) ha