Israel's ambassador to Croatia yesterday condemned the funeral given to a second World War concentration camp commander, saying it insulted the memory of those killed in the camp run by Croatia's collaborationist wartime Ustasha regime.
Dinko Sakic, who was in charge of the Jasenovac camp in northeastern Croatia during the second World War, died last week in Zagreb at the age of 87 while serving a jail sentence for war crimes.
"I'm convinced that the majority of the Croatian people are shocked by the way the funeral of the Jasenovac commander and murderer, dressed in an Ustasha uniform, was conducted," Israeli ambassador, Shmuel Meirom, said in a statement to the state news agency, Hina. "At the same time, I strongly condemn the inappropriate words of the priest who served at the funeral and said that Sakic was a model for all Croats. I'm convinced it is not an official attitude of the Catholic Church in Croatia."
According to Croatia's Vecernji List daily, Sakic was buried in the Ustasha uniform and described by the priest at the funeral as "a person Croats must be proud of". Mr Meirom said the event did not contribute to a positive image of Croatia, which had "made commendable efforts in recent years to condemn the years of the Ustasha regime".
The pro-Nazi puppet state of Croatia from 1941 to 1945 carried out persecutions and mass killings. Tens of thousands of Jews, Serbs, Gypsies and anti-fascist Croats (partisans) perished in Jasenovac, the worst of its concentration camps. The greatest number of victims at Jasenovac were Serbs. Most Jews murdered there were killed before 1942, after which Jewish inmates were transported to the Auschwitz extermination camp in Silesia.
Sakic was sentenced in 1999 to the then maximum 20-year jail term for war crimes after his extradition from Argentina, where he had lived since leaving Croatia at the end of the war. His trial was significant for Croatia as the late president Franjo Tudjman, who died in 1999, was often criticised for nationalistic policies and accused by Jewish groups of trying to whitewash Ustasha atrocities.
Irish Times
Showing posts with label Jasenovac. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jasenovac. Show all posts
August 01, 2008
November 05, 2007
'Last Nazi Hunter' still has work to do
They call him the Last Nazi Hunter.
For the past 27 years, Efraim Zuroff has travelled around the world, tracking down those who believed they had long since gotten away with murder. His mission: to expose and help prosecute those who participated in the killing and persecution of Jews and others during the Second World War. His numbers: About 3,000 suspects tracked down.
"The overwhelming majority of the Nazi war criminals in the world today are not hiding. They're living under their own names. And they think at this point in time, no one had found them yet," said Mr. Zuroff, the director of Simon Wiesenthal Centre's Jerusalem branch. Mr. Wiesenthal, who died two years ago, was a survivor of the Nazi death camps who dedicated his life to documenting the crimes of the Holocaust and to hunting down the perpetrators still at large.
For Mr. Zuroff, 59, there is still work to do. He's still searching for the remaining war criminals, many of whom emigrated to western democracies or South America. But he acknowledges the era of pursuing Nazi war criminals will soon come to a close.
"That's clear. Because the people are dying. The original mission, the efforts to bring those criminals to justice, will end in a few years," he said. But it's not over yet, he insists. "People without a conscience live longer. Much less stress."
Mr. Zuroff, who described his work as "one-third detective work, one-third historical research and one-third political lobbying," will speak about his experiences Thursday at the University of Ottawa, as part of Holocaust Education Week.
His greatest coup was exposing and mounting a campaign to prosecute Dinko Sakic, a commander at the Croatian concentration camp Jasenovac, where tens of thousands of civilians were killed. The war criminal was found living in Argentina. In 1998, the 77-year-old was extradited to Croatia and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Worldwide, there have been 69 convictions in the last six years. Three were in Canada, with the bulk in the United States, at 34. A report by Mr. Zuroff gave Canada an 'F' for investigating or prosecuting Nazi war criminals. Since 1994, Canada has initiated 21 cases and obtained eight denaturalizations against defendants living in Canada, the report said. None of them have been deported.
Two defendants have left the country voluntarily, while six died during the legal proceedings. Three won their cases.
"Lawyers for these defendants have been able to tie down the courts for years, and prevent their clients from getting kicked out. It's simply outrageous," he said.
Ottawa Citizen
For the past 27 years, Efraim Zuroff has travelled around the world, tracking down those who believed they had long since gotten away with murder. His mission: to expose and help prosecute those who participated in the killing and persecution of Jews and others during the Second World War. His numbers: About 3,000 suspects tracked down.
"The overwhelming majority of the Nazi war criminals in the world today are not hiding. They're living under their own names. And they think at this point in time, no one had found them yet," said Mr. Zuroff, the director of Simon Wiesenthal Centre's Jerusalem branch. Mr. Wiesenthal, who died two years ago, was a survivor of the Nazi death camps who dedicated his life to documenting the crimes of the Holocaust and to hunting down the perpetrators still at large.
For Mr. Zuroff, 59, there is still work to do. He's still searching for the remaining war criminals, many of whom emigrated to western democracies or South America. But he acknowledges the era of pursuing Nazi war criminals will soon come to a close.
"That's clear. Because the people are dying. The original mission, the efforts to bring those criminals to justice, will end in a few years," he said. But it's not over yet, he insists. "People without a conscience live longer. Much less stress."
Mr. Zuroff, who described his work as "one-third detective work, one-third historical research and one-third political lobbying," will speak about his experiences Thursday at the University of Ottawa, as part of Holocaust Education Week.
His greatest coup was exposing and mounting a campaign to prosecute Dinko Sakic, a commander at the Croatian concentration camp Jasenovac, where tens of thousands of civilians were killed. The war criminal was found living in Argentina. In 1998, the 77-year-old was extradited to Croatia and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Worldwide, there have been 69 convictions in the last six years. Three were in Canada, with the bulk in the United States, at 34. A report by Mr. Zuroff gave Canada an 'F' for investigating or prosecuting Nazi war criminals. Since 1994, Canada has initiated 21 cases and obtained eight denaturalizations against defendants living in Canada, the report said. None of them have been deported.
Two defendants have left the country voluntarily, while six died during the legal proceedings. Three won their cases.
"Lawyers for these defendants have been able to tie down the courts for years, and prevent their clients from getting kicked out. It's simply outrageous," he said.
Ottawa Citizen
Labels:
Dinko Sakic,
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nazi,
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June 19, 2007
Nazi hunter raps 'fascist' Croatian rock concert
The Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center on Monday voiced outrage over a Croatian rock concert by a popular ultra-nationalist singer that featured multiple "fascist" invocations.
The Sunday evening Zagreb concert, which was attended by 60,000 people including Croatian members of parliament and the Croatian ministers of science, education and sports, turned into a massive fascist demonstration, the organization's chief Nazi hunter and Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff said.
Thousands of people attending the rock concert by the singer "Thompson" shouted the infamous Ustasha regime's salute of "Za dom spremni," while numerous participants came wearing Ustasha uniforms and symbols, the center said in a press release.
"Under the current circumstances, I believe that the time has come to prohibit public concerts by those who write songs of nostalgia for [the] Jasenovac [concentration camp] and inspire the show of Ustasha symbols, which constitute open and blatant incitement against all the minorities in Croatia," Zuroff wrote in a Monday letter to Croatian President Stjepan Mesic. "I believe that only if someone of your stature and outstanding anti-fascist credentials will lead the efforts to combat this ugly wave of revived fascism, can this extremely dangerous new trend be stopped before it engulfs Croatia," he continued.
The Ustasha regime ran a puppet government after the Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941. During their four years in power, the Ustasha carried out a Serb genocide, exterminating over 500,000 people, expelling 250,000 and forcing another 250,000 to convert to Catholicism. The Ustasha also killed most of Croatia's Jews, 20,000 gypsies and many thousands of their political enemies. After the war, most of the Ustasha leaders escaped to South America and Spain.
During the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, there was a certain resurgence of Ustasha symbols coinciding with the ethnic hatred that remained after the wars.
Jerusalem Post
The Sunday evening Zagreb concert, which was attended by 60,000 people including Croatian members of parliament and the Croatian ministers of science, education and sports, turned into a massive fascist demonstration, the organization's chief Nazi hunter and Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff said.
Thousands of people attending the rock concert by the singer "Thompson" shouted the infamous Ustasha regime's salute of "Za dom spremni," while numerous participants came wearing Ustasha uniforms and symbols, the center said in a press release.
"Under the current circumstances, I believe that the time has come to prohibit public concerts by those who write songs of nostalgia for [the] Jasenovac [concentration camp] and inspire the show of Ustasha symbols, which constitute open and blatant incitement against all the minorities in Croatia," Zuroff wrote in a Monday letter to Croatian President Stjepan Mesic. "I believe that only if someone of your stature and outstanding anti-fascist credentials will lead the efforts to combat this ugly wave of revived fascism, can this extremely dangerous new trend be stopped before it engulfs Croatia," he continued.
The Ustasha regime ran a puppet government after the Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941. During their four years in power, the Ustasha carried out a Serb genocide, exterminating over 500,000 people, expelling 250,000 and forcing another 250,000 to convert to Catholicism. The Ustasha also killed most of Croatia's Jews, 20,000 gypsies and many thousands of their political enemies. After the war, most of the Ustasha leaders escaped to South America and Spain.
During the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, there was a certain resurgence of Ustasha symbols coinciding with the ethnic hatred that remained after the wars.
Jerusalem Post
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