REMEMBRANCE DAY FOR HOLOCAUST VICTIMS MARKED IN CROATIA

( Editorial: --> 9087 ) ZAGREB, Apr 23 (Hina) - Candles were lit and wreaths laid at Mirogoj Cemetery in Zagreb in honour and memory of the six million of innocent Jews killed in the Holocaust. Wreaths were laid by the Coordination of Jewish Municipalities in Croatia and representatives of the Croatian state. Vice Premier Ivica Kostovic lay wreaths on behalf of the Croatian President and Government, while on behalf of the Croatian National Parliament a wreath was laid by House of Representatives president Jadranka Kosor. Alongside members of the Jewish community, the commemoration was attended by representatives of other religious communities in Croatia, as well as representatives of the diplomatic corps accredited in Croatia. The president of the Jewish Municipality Zagreb and the Coordination of Jewish Municipalities in Croatia, Ognjen Kraus, recalled a project of the Israeli Memorial Holocaust Museum Yad Vashem, which says that every person killed in the Holocaust had their own name which must not be forgotten. The names of the members of the Zagreb Jewish Municipality who were killed in the Holocaust were read out. Kraus warned about some negative manifestations and anti-Semitic attacks to which prominent members of the Jewish community in Croatia, and the community itself, had recently been subjected to. Labelling the Jewish community and some of its prominent members as nostalgic for the former Yugoslavia is utterly absurd, Kraus said and recalled the clear standpoint and attitude the Jewish community adopted in Croatia during the Homeland War. Why do these attacks take place right now and why have some papers joined an anti-Semitic propaganda, Kraus asked, which reminds one of anti-Semitic texts circulating just prior to World War Two. Speaking about the WW2 concentration camp at Jasenovac, Kraus said the Jews want Jasenovac to be a memorial site for the victims of the Independent State of Croatia (1941-1945). The Jewish community hoped the Croatian Ministry of Culture would keep its promise and restore the memorial site in Jasenovac, destroyed during the Homeland War. Kraus warned that the remains of the victims and their executors might come close together in the name of a general reconciliation, a notion, he said, totally unacceptable to the Jewish community. A people like the Jews understands well the need to mourn the victims, Kraus said. That is why the Jewish community in Croatia believes another memorial site could be set for other WW2 victims. Today commemorations were also held and wreaths laid in Kutina, western Slavonia, and Osijek, eastern Slavonia, where a commemorative session was also held. (hina) ha 232243 MET apr 98