BOOK ABOUT JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP PRESENTED IN ZAGREB

ZAGREB, Feb 2 (Hina) - "Nastanak jasenovackog mita" (Creation of the Jasenovac Myth), a book by Josip Jurcevic, was presented at the "Ivo Pilar" Institute of Science in Zagreb on Tuesday. Jurcevic's 202-page book, a Master's thesis at the Zagreb Faculty of Philosophy, tackles the study of World War Two victims on Croatian territory. The author's basic postulate is that the number of victims of the infamous Ustasha concentration camp in Jasenovac cannot be reliably determined. Jurcevic does not put forward "his own" figure, but engages in a historiographic analysis of extant documentation on war victims and the way it is interpreted, thus directing the Jasenovac debate towards the sphere of science. Presenting the book, historian Dragutin Pavlicevic said the Jasenovac camp had been the subject of a huge number of books financed from Belgrade. All those books sold a huge number of copies, he said, emphasising their authors would compete before consignees to produce as high a number of Jasenovac victims as possible. Speaking about his work with the author, tutor Marijan Maticka said Jurcevic was a historian with a high regard for professional rules, his stand towards sources, and for the realisation of the plurality of historical truth. This, Maticka said, made Jurcevic's book a crucial source in any debate on WW2 victims. It has been proposed to translate the book in English as soon as possible. (hina) ha jn