May 19, 1996
Croatian War-Shrine Plan RevivesPain
By CHRIS HEDGES
The anguish of tens of thousands of people killed during the 1940's at the concentration campthat was built here along the marshy banks of the Sava River still reverberates from theovergrown brush and deserted buildings.For while the camp lies neglected and derelict, those who died here have become thecenterpiece of a plan that has outraged survivors and threatens to distort historical truth for political gain.Defying international criticism, the Croatian Government says it will press ahead with plansto turn the camp into a memorial for victims of Communist and fascist terror.President Franjo Tudjman, who fought the Germans as a young member of Tito's Partisans,said a few days ago that he wanted to turn the camp into "a memorial for all victims of war."Those who died under fascist and Communist rule, along with the dead from the 1991Croatian war against the Serbs, would lie side by side at Jasenovac.Mr. Tudjman has even called for the return of the remains of the fascist wartime dictator AntePavelic, who is buried in Spain.This has sparked outrage because the victims at Jasenovac, who were mainly Serbs butincluded Jews and Gypsies, were killed by the fascist Croatian regime backed by the Nazis.Many survivors see the President's plan, which has been criticized by several Europeanleaders and Secretary of State Warren Christopher, as a desecration of the site."This is like reburying the bones of German SS officers and building a monument in their memory at Auschwitz," said Slavko Goldstein, a Holocaust survivor who now lives in Zagreb,the capital.The Jasenovac camp, 45 miles southeast of Zagreb, was the largest of 27 concentration campsin Yugoslavia during World War II. It was set up by the fascist government in Croatia andadministered by the Ustashe, the Croatian equivalent of the Nazi SS.The Croatian fascists adopted Nazi racial laws and set out to exterminate Jews, Gypsies andSerbs. Many other Croatian dissidents, including 12 Catholic priests, also died.President Tudjman, seeking to defuse criticism of the wartime government, says 28,000 people were killed at Jasenovac. Tito, eager to demonize his fascist rivals, said 700,000 people died. Both figures are dismissed as unrealistic by independent scholars in the UnitedStates, who estimate that about 80,000 people were killed here."The tragedy that took place here has become a dispute about numbers," said Dr. SlobodanLang, whose grandparents died at the camp. "Because the pain is painted in gray, collectivetones, the suffering of individuals is ignored and manipulated. It is shameful."Many victims were unloaded from freight cars and killed immediately on the banks of theriver, their bodies tossed into the water. The rest worked as slave laborers, digging clay out of
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