BOOK BY VLADIMIR ZERJAVIC PUBLISHED IN ENGLISH AND FRENCH

ZAGREB, 30 Oct (Hina) - The Zagreb-based publishing house 'Home and the World' and the Croatian Institute for History have recently published English and French translations of a book by Vladimir Zerjavic, entitled "Population Losses in Yugoslavia 1941 - 1945". The reason for publishing the translation of "Population Losses in Yugoslavia 1941 - 1945" was "the protracted demonization of the Croatian people in the world by means of (these) fabricated figures", the head of the Croatian Institute for History, Dr Mirko Valentic, said in his foreword to the book. Ţhe translation of Zerjavic's book has three parts, the first one being the basic text of a book from 1989 (with data on the number of victims in World War II). An additional part from 1992 presents attempts aimed at invalidating the research efforts of Vladimir Zerjavic and "the impermissible manipulations with war victims figures used by the Serbian journalists, particularly Milan Bulajic", says Valentic. In the third part of the book the author attempts to acquaint the foreign reader with the dramatic circumstances of the Greater Serbian aggression against the Republic of Croatia, when the "manipulations with the number of victims were really used to get revenge against Croats for the alleged terrible genocide over the Serbs in World War II", says Valentic in his foreword. There are still disputes in the former Yugoslavia about the number of people who were killed and who perished in camps, prisons, villages, towns and cities during the period 1941 - 1945 and the difference in the various calculations of the total death toll amounts to almost one million people, Valentic says. According to Valentic, the problem came into being as early as 1946 when Tito's then-Yugoslavia submitted to the Paris International Reparation Commission the figure of as many as 1,706,000 dead with the actual aim of obtaining "larger reparations from the defeated Germany". Serbian media in collusion with historiography attempted not only to defend that "impossible figure", but to increase it to almost 2 million, says Valentic. The underlying goal of the process of exaggerating the number of victims was to prove that high losses in the total figure were suffered by the Serbian people in the Jasenovac camp and through this to accuse the Croatian people of genocide upon the Serbs, Valentic says. At the request of the German Government the Government of the former Yugoslavia had organised and carried out a registration throughout the territory of the entire Yugoslavia in 1964, in which 597,000 death certificates were filed. "Unfortunately, this huge archival material and its results were officially classified top secret in 1966", so that the only remaining means for discovering the truth was through the methodology of demographics, Valentic says. Two researchers who worked in completely different parts of the world arrived at almost identical results, using the first population census in Yugoslavia after World War II (1948) - the Serbian emigrant Bogoljub Kocovic and Vladimir Zerjavic. According to Kocovic's results (London, 1985) the total losses in Yugoslavia were 1.014,000, while Vladimir Zerjavic arrived at a total of 1.027,000 victims (Zagreb, 1989). According to Zerjavic's calculation, 947,000 people lost their lives on the territory of Yugoslavia and 80,000 abroad. Particularly fascinating are the differences in the number of victims alleged in the Jasenovac camp, Valentic says, adding that the 1964 list of the Government of Yugoslavia found 49,874 dead n Jasenovac, whereas Serbian historiography (Milan Bulajic) "was still insisting on the figure of 700,000 victims, predominantly Serbs". Opposing the thesis of collective guilt and the placement of the burden of total responsibility on only one nation, Valentic stresses that "moral responsibility cannot be divided equally, particularly not in the case of the Croatian people who, compared to the total population, had the strongest Antifascist movement in Europe". Zerjavic's research results are the most convincing proofs of that idea, says Valentic. According to those results, a total of 216,000 people was killed in all the camps in Yugoslavia. Approximately 85,000 of this figure were killed in the Jasenovac camp, while some 28,000 people were killed in other camps in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). Approximately 113,000 people, Serbs, Croats, Jews and Gypsies, were killed in all the camps, prisons and pits in the Independent State of Croatia, Valentic stresses. Approximately 53,000 people were killed in the camps in Serbia. Some 285,000 people were killed in villages, towns and cities in the whole of Yugoslavia. Some 237,000 Partisans were killed and approximately 209,000 of those who fought on the side of the occupiers were killed. To conclude, the total number of dead would amount to one million people, says Valentic. At the end of his foreword Valentic stresses his hope that the book "Population Losses in Yugoslavia 1941 - 1945" would be of significant use to all who want "light shed on the still extremely politicized relations in this part of Europe". (hina) rm 301425 MET oct 97