Grabar-Kitarovic, who is on a two-day working visit to Israel, said this at a ceremony held in Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, Yad Vashem, at which Auschwitz survivor Branko Lustig, one of the producers of the film Schindler's List, presented his Academy Award to Yad Vashem's Visual Centre for safekeeping.
"As Croatia's president, I express my deepest remorse for all Holocaust victims in Croatia, those killed by the hand of the Nazi-collaborating Ustasha regime during World War II," Grabar-Kitarovic said after touring Yad Vashem and laying a wreath in the Hall of Remembrance.
She recalled that apart from the Jews, numerous Romani, Serbs and Croats and all those considered enemies of the regime were also killed during the Ustasha regime.
Addressing Holocaust survivors from Croatia and their families and descendants, the president said she deeply felt their pain and suffering. She explicitly said the Ustasha regime had stained the Croatian people, underscoring that "for the sake of the future we must face and accept out past."
"The Ustasha regime was not the reflection of the true wishes of the Croatian people for an independent state. Unfortunately, they had manipulated the desire of the Croatian people for independence," the president said, adding that a large number of Croats were part of the anti-fascist movement, including members of her family.
"I am thankful to those who have put us on the right side of history. Present-day Croatia is founded on anti-fascism and the Homeland War," said the president.
"The Homeland War was important to us because it brought us our freedom, but it also brought a lot of destruction," Grabar Kitarovic said mentioning Vukovar, a town in eastern Croatia from which many people were taken to concentration camps and their remains have not yet been found.
"We believed that after WWII nothing like Vukovar and Srebrenica could ever happen on European soil. However, it did happen and that tells us we must never take peace and our values for granted.
"Croatia today is a proud member of the European Union and NATO which shares the same values with Israel and countries that protect their freedom, democracy and rights of every individual, regardless of their ethnic, religious or any other background," Grabar-Kitarovic said.
She also said she was exceptionally proud to be able to praise the life of Branko Lustig and his mission to build a better world.
Lustig, 83, is a prominent Croatian film producer and the only person born in the territory of present-day Croatia to have won two Academy Awards. He received his first Oscar in 1993 for the production of Schindler's List and his second Oscar for the epic movie Gladiator about a struggle for power in Imperial Rome, in 2001.
Lustig said his Oscar statue had found its rightful resting place. "I'm not parting with it, I am leaving it to the nation, for generations to come... All Yad Vashem's visitors will see it, at my home there is only my wife and my daughter," he said..
Grabar-Kitarovic said the glistening statue was a "beacon of light" and a reminder, because of Schindler, of the sacrifices made by non-Jews to save Jews from the Nazis.
She also announced the construction of a Holocaust memorial centre in Zagreb, calling for cooperation with Yad Vashem.
"I take this opportunity today to condemn all totalitarian regimes, Nazism, Fascism and Communism," the Croatian president said.
Paying her respect to the Righteous Among the Nations, Grabar-Kitarovic said that 111 Croatians have been recognised as "Righteous Among the Nations" and their names have been added to the Wall of Honor in the Garden of the Righteous at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.
Later this evening, Grabar-Kitarovic will hold talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On Thursday, Grabar-Kitarovic will hold talks with her host, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, and Knesset Speaker Yuli-Yoel Edelstein.