Jasenovac Camp Victims Commemorated Separately Again

Commemoration in Jasenovac. Photo: Lovorka Sosic.

Despite rain, about 2,000 people gathered on Friday for the annual commemoration of the victims of the camp at Jasenovac, site of an infamous World War II concentration camp run by the wartime Croatian fascist Ustase regime.

They gathered first at the Jasenovac Memorial Museum, and then the column passed earthen columns that symbolize the tombs of the dead and the camp buildings.

Representatives of anti-fascist groups and Croatia's Serb, Roma and Jewish communities delivered speeches in the shadow of the huge monument to the victims of the camp, called the "Stone Flower" for its shape.

"While the Ustasa salute is not removed from public use, there will be no common commemoration at the Jasenovac memorial area," Croatian Jewish community leader Ognjen Kraus said, describing the camp as "the darkest place of Croatian history".

After that followed choral singing, a reading testimonies of prisoners and a short commemoration by religious communities.

A delegation of the main Croatian opposition Social Democratic Party, SDP, led by its president, Davor Bernardic, also attended.

A name-by-name list compiled by the Jasenovac Memorial Site said the Ustasa regime killed 83,145 Serbs, Jews, Roma and anti-fascists in the camp between August 1941 and April 1945.

The annual commemorations have been organised at the former camp to mark the last attempted breakout by inmates on April 22, 1945, before the Ustasa liquidated the camp and the regime fell.

For the fourth year, representatives of Croatia's Jewish and Serbian communities, as well as anti-fascists, will boycott the official commemoration of the victims of the camp on April 14.

In March, Prime Minister Andrej...