In his address, the head of the Jewish Community of Zagreb, Ognjen Kraus, highlighted responsibility as the central theme of Judaism and solidarity which Jews offer to those in need in times of hardship.
Kraus mentioned two organisations that helped Jews in Ustasha-run Croatia during the Second World War: the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, established in 1914, and HICEM, established in 1927. He said that the Croatian public at the time was indifferent to the fact that their neighbours were disappearing overnight and that the new Croatian government also remained indifferent to the remaining surviving members of the once numerous Jewish community, just as the previous Yugoslav government had been.
Kraus asked the Croatian authorities why only the Jews were excluded from the process of restitution of seized property and when the Croatian state would correct this. He cited a 1996 law that provides for the restitution only of property seized by the Communist authorities, but not that seized by the Ustasha regime during the Second World War, adding that the Jewish Community of Zagreb had requested a review of the law and restitution of its property, but that it had not happened to date.
Kraus said that Croatia had not yet faced up to the crimes committed by the Ustasha regime and that those crimes were still downplayed.
Israeli Ambassador Yosef Amrani called on the Croatian authorities to side with those whose property had been taken away from them, for the sake of building the future of the Jewish community in Croatia. He said that Croatia had made great democratic progress, but that it could not be fully democratic until the property was restored.
Amrani mentioned the speech delivered in the Knesset by Croatian President Ivo Josipovic during his recent visit to Israel, when he said that legislative amendments might soon been adopted that would include the restitution of property seized during the Second World War.
At the monument to Moses, wreaths were also laid by President Ivo Josipovic, a Croatian Parliament delegation led by Speaker Boris Sprem, Branko Grcic on behalf of the government, Mayor Milan Bandic, City Assembly Speaker Davor Bernardic, Chairman of the Council for National Minorities Aleksandar Tolnauer, and representatives of several embassies.