The monograph entitled "I mi smo branili Hrvatsku: Romi u Domovinskom ratu ("We too defended Croatia: The Roma in the Homeland War" in an unofficial translation) includes testimonies of Roma war veterans and their commanders, and this is the first book of this kind to be published in Croatia.
Veljko Kajtazi, the Croatian Roma leader and a member of the parliament, praised the publication of the book and added that there were no accurate data on the number of Roma defenders as they had joined Croatian troops individually.
"The Roma community has a heavy burden of historical injustice. A lack of written traces contributed to the dissemination of misinformation about the Roma," Kajtazi said, adding that the book would counter such trends.
The author of the monograph, historian Borna Marinic, worked on this project for two years. He interviewed over 50 Roma soldiers and their commanders for the book.
A documentary about this topic is going to be made as well.
Marinic proposed that the city of Vukovar should have a street named after Zdravko Vladisavljevic Edi, a Roma defender who was killed on 18 November 1991, the day of when Serb insurgents and the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) raided that eastern Croatian town.