"The erection of the plaque commemorating Mile Budak is a test for the Croatian government and the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). It is not enough for them just to condemn the erection of the plaque, but they must also remove it," Zuroff told Hina in a telephone interview on Tuesday.
Zuroff said he hoped the government of Prime Minister Ivo Sanader "will pass the test and condemn the acts committed by Ustashas."
Zuroff pointed out that the memorial plaque sent "a completely wrong message to Croatian society and the rest of the world." "Members of the Ustasha movement must not be glorified, even in cases when the were good novelists," he added.
Zuroff noted that he fully agreed with the statements made by Croatian President Stjepan Mesic about the case.
The news of the monument, which was put up last Sunday in the village of Sveti Rok in the municipality of Lovinac in central Croatia, has been carried by international news agencies, Israeli newspapers, Canadian state-run television network CBC and CNN.
The Jerusalem Post quoted President Mesic as saying that monuments commemorating fascist leaders should not be raised and that such acts were particularly unacceptable in areas struggling to rebuild relations among ethnic communities.
"Such monuments will again cause divisions in the country and keep Croatia away from Europe," the paper quoted Mesic as saying.
Another Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, reported that the Croatian government had asked local authorities to remove the monument.
News agencies said that Budak was responsible for racial laws imposed during the Nazi-backed regime in Croatia.
Budak was a minister of education and religious affairs in the first government of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). Towards the end of 1941 he became an ambassador to Berlin, remaining in this position until April 1943. Upon returning to Zagreb he took up the post of foreign affairs minister, which he filled until November 1943. After the war a Yugoslav military court sentenced him to death, and he was executed on June 7, 1945.
Proponents of the monument have pointed out that Budak was a great Croatian writer and that his works should be judged by literary critics.
French news agency AFP on Tuesday ran a story under the headline "Intellectuals seek revision of the trial of 'Croatian Goebbels'", carrying an appeal issued by "about a hundred Croatian intellectuals who have requested a revision of the trial of former pro-Nazi minister Mile Budak, who was executed by Communists in June 1945 and who is compared by antifascists to Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler's minister of information and propaganda."