Book Event Questioning WWII Crimes Planned for Zagreb Church

The Society for Research of the Threefold Jasenovac Camp, which questions whether the fascist Ustasa-run Jasenovac detention site was really a concentration camp during World War II, is to hold a promotional event for a book entitled 'The Jasenovac Lie Revealed' at a Zagreb church on January 16.

According to the Jasenovac Memorial Site, the Ustasa killed over 83,000 Serbs, Jews, Roma and anti-fascists at the camp between 1941 and 1945, but right-wing revisionists claim the death toll was much lower.

The Society claims that the Ustasa only ran a labour camp at Jasenovac for enemies of the regime, and that a concentration camp was only established by the Yugoslav Communists after the war, imprisoning Ustasa members and regular Croatian Home Guard army troops after WWII until 1948, then alleged Stalinists until 1951.

The NGO supports its theory with documents - some of which are those of the camp administration and Nazi allies - that counter the vast majority of scientifically-backed documents, testimonies and writings of prominent historians.

The newly-elected president of the Society is Igor Vukic, a Croatian author who argued in his book 'Labour Camp Jasenovac' that Jasenovac was not a concentration camp but a labour and punishment camp for enemies of the Croatian state.

According to the invitation, the event will take place in the hall of a church in central Zagreb where a mass commemorating Ustasa leader Ante Pavelic Ante Pavelic has taken place in previous years.

Vukic and the authors, academic Josip Pecaric and Catholic priest Stjepan Razum, will speak about the book.

Pecaric is one of the Croatian right-wingers who wants the country's army to adopt the Ustasa salute 'Za dom spremni' ("Ready for the Homeland").