JASENOVAC CAMP HELD JASENOVAC, May 11 (Hina) - A commemorative service was held at the memorial site in Jasenovac on Sunday in memory to the 58th anniversary of inmates' break-out from the Ustasha-run Jasenovac concentration camp,
when 1,100 prisoners were killed and only about a hundred detainees managed to save their lives.
JASENOVAC, May 11 (Hina) - A commemorative service was held at the
memorial site in Jasenovac on Sunday in memory to the 58th
anniversary of inmates' break-out from the Ustasha-run Jasenovac
concentration camp, when 1,100 prisoners were killed and only about
a hundred detainees managed to save their lives. #L#
Addressing those who attended Sunday's commemoration, Croatian
President Stjepan Mesic, under whose auspices this memorial event
was held, expressed his deep regret over innocent victims "fallen
because of those who abused the idea of the Croatian state to kill,
plunder and persecute".
"Today we pay tribute to those who fought against fascism and those
who fell victim in Jasenovac, which used to be the biggest execution
site in the Second World War in a country which was imagined as
Croatia but which was never that," Mesic said.
Recalling the historical context of the events in Jasenovac in WW2,
the Croatian head of state said that "the present-day Croatia is in
no way successor to the state creation from the WW2 which
unfortunately had that Croatian name."
"In Jasenovac, but not only here and not only then, killings were
carried out on behalf of the idea of the Croatian state. The idea of
one's own state is a great and grand idea, Croats have carried it in
their minds through many centuries. Now, finally we live in our own
Croatian state, a free and democratic country we defended during
the brutal war waged against us," Mesic said.
"We know what happened, we do not close eyes before the truth, we are
ready to face the facts under the slogan that we do not forget and
that we shall not allow it recur. The Croatian people is not and must
not be hostage of those who smeared the Croatian name with their
crimes," the president said.
This should not be done by those "who would like to convince us that
a majority of the Croatian people had supported the Ustasha regime,
which is the historical untruth," he added.
The president stressed that attempts should be thwarted aimed at
the rehabilitation of the quisling Ustasha regime set up in Croatia
in 1941, and explained that no rehabilitation should be and could be
made of those who killed in Jasenovac innocent people only because
they had been Serbs, Jews or Romany, or Croatians who had different
opinions than the Ustasha regime.
Mesic reiterated that the Croatian people's orientation was
towards the entry into the united Europe created on the anti-
Fascist grounds, the protection of human rights and freedoms, on
multi-ethnicity, multi-culturality and freedom for every
religion.
According to him, those who would like to push young generations of
Croatia in to the shackles of the falsified history are often
vociferous and aggressive, but they a minority.
Mesic added that at elections parties and politicians can be
changed but basic foundations of the Republic of Croatia cannot be
altered.
A telegram of Premier Ivica Racan was read out at the commemoration,
in which PM says that "one should remember the victims of the
Jasenovac camp" and he urges that all should try apprehend what is
difficult but necessary to be understood in order "to prevent
recurrence of horrors which one human being can do to the other
human being only if he or she starts believing that he or she is
better than others.."
Present at the commemoration were delegations of the Croatian
parliament and government, ex-inmates of the Jasenovac camp, anti-
fascist fighters from WW2, a delegation of the Jewish communities
in Croatia, a member of Bosnia-Herzegovina's collective
presidency, Sulejman Tihic, ambassadors accredited in Zagreb,
families and relatives of the Jasenovac camp's victims,
politicians and representatives of political associations.
One of those inmates who survived the attempt of the breakout from
the camp, Branko Petrina spoke about the events from the spring
1945. Petrina said he did not ask for the revenge but only for the
truth to be shown to all generations so that no such atrocity be
repeated. He added that crimes were committed under the fascist and
Nazi ideology and that a majority of Croatians had opted for anti-
fascism.
At the end of the commemorative services, prayers were said.
(hina) ms