CWC SENDS PROTEST TO SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTRE REGARDING STEPINAC

( Editorial: --> 5047 ) BERN/ZAGREB, Oct 2 (Hina) - Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac was a man who fought bravely against Nazism, Fascism and Communism and who was a true friend of the Jews. Therefore, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre has "really gone too far in its fervency" in attacking the Catholic Church's decision to beatify him, the Croatian World Congress (CWC) said in a letter sent on Friday to the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Paris. "We were astonished and greatly displeased with your reaction to the beatification of Cardinal Stepinac... who fought bravely against Nazism, Fascism and Communism, the greatest evils of the 20th century. "He protested openly... against the persecution of the innocent, against concentration camps and 'the yellow star'," said the letter signed by CWC president Simun Sito Coric. Coric's letter also mentions Stepinac's letters of protest and public speeches in which he demanded from the highest Independent State of Croatia (NDH, 1941-45) officials that laws should be fair and the rights and duties of all citizens equal. "Surely, the American Congress, or W.S. Churchill, or Luis Breier, who was the leader of American Jews at the time, or many other famous people from all over the world would not have protested against the Yugoslav government's Stalinist rage against Stepinac without good reason," Coric wrote in the letter. He added that even Milovan Djilas, a Yugoslav politician at the time of Stepinac's trial who later became a dissident, had said that Stepinac was a just man who was sentenced for "political reasons". In the prologue of the letter, Coric quoted Breier's statement on Stepinac from October 1946: This great man devoted to his Church was convicted as a Nazi collaborator. We, the Jews, disapprove of it. We know from his history, starting from 1934, that he was a true friend of the Jews... He was among a few people in Europe who opposed the Nazi tyranny... This man, now a victim of a disgraceful trial, spoke openly and fearlessly against the Nuernberg racist laws during the Nazi regime, and his protests against Nazi terror never ceased... The CWC letter repeats the recent Coordination of Jewish Councils of Croatia president Ognjen Kraus's statement in which he said that "the Croatian Jews are grateful to Cardinal Stepinac for making an effort to save many Jews in the Ustasha NDH", and named the specifics of some of Stepinac's deeds which supported this claim. In conclusion to his letter, the CWC president said that a prominent Jew recently told him in a course of a conversation that the Paris Simon Wiesenthal Centre had "really gone too far in its fervency" and that in this manner it had done "considerable damage to the credibility of this otherwise praiseworthy institution". (Hina) is /mbr 021801 MET oct 98