ZAGREB, April 19 (Hina) - Yom Hashoah - the saddest day in the Jewish calendar, when Jews all over the world remember six million Jewish victims of the Shoah (Holocaust), was marked at Zagreb's central cemetery of Mirogoj with the
lighting of candles, laying of wreaths and a prayer, which was said by the chief rabbi in Croatia, Kotel Da-Don.
ZAGREB, April 19 (Hina) - Yom Hashoah - the saddest day in the Jewish
calendar, when Jews all over the world remember six million Jewish
victims of the Shoah (Holocaust), was marked at Zagreb's central
cemetery of Mirogoj with the lighting of candles, laying of wreaths
and a prayer, which was said by the chief rabbi in Croatia, Kotel Da-
Don.#L#
The Shoah - which means destruction or the Holocaust in Hebrew - is
the gravest tragedy in the long and difficult history of the Jewish
people, in which six million adults, children and elderly people
were killed in the biggest genocide in the history of mankind, said
the head of the Zagreb Jewish Community and the Coordination of
Jewish Communities in Croatia, Ognjen Kraus.
This year, Jews in Croatia pay special tribute to Jewish victims
from the Nova Gradiska area, killed in the death camps of Stara
Gradiska and Jasenovac. The names of those victims were read out at
today's ceremony. For 12 years Jews in Croatia have been
participating in a Yad Vashem project, called "Every Person Has A
Name", which is intended to warn the public that behind the figure
of six million there are six million human histories.
Before World War II, the Jewish community in Croatia had about
24,000 members who lived in 40 communities. The biggest community -
the one in Zagreb - had almost 12,000 members. At the time, there
were 40 synagogues in Croatia. Today, less than 3,000 Jews live in
10 communities in Croatia and there are only three old synagogues.
These figures speak for themselves, Kraus said, adding that Jews in
Croatia had been forced to fiercely defend the truth about
themselves and the Holocaust in the past ten years.
"The nationalist orientation of the ruling policy encouraged the
forging of history and the eradication of memories of and monuments
to the anti-fascist movement and struggle, and tolerated rightist
extremism and ethnic intolerance," Kraus said.
Jews in Croatia do not feel jeopardised because no one attacks them
and anti-Semitism is officially denounced. Still, Kraus added,
Jews are aware that anti-Semitism is latent in Croatia, too, and
that it should be fought on all levels and by all means. Jews
continue to insist that Nazi and Ustasha symbols be banned by law
and that racism be punished, and are making efforts so that classes
about the Holocaust are introduced in Croatian schools, Kraus
added.
Attending today's commemoration along with representatives of
other religious communities in Croatia were Roman Catholic
auxiliary bishop of Zagreb, Vlado Kosic, and the head of the Muslim
community, Sevko Omerbasic.
Croatian state officials, too, laid wreaths at the monument to
Moses.
(hina) rml