Posted on 04/12/2010 2:43:56 PM PDT by Ravnagora
Republika Srpska marked the 65th anniversary of the uprising in Jasenovac concentration camp, one of the most brutal death camps of World War Two, in Donja Gradina, Bosnia and Herzegovina on Sunday.
Donja Gradina was the main burial site for the Jasenovac extermination camp located in the vicinity of a town by the same name. Jasenovac was established by the Nazi-allied Independent State of Croatia (NDH) during World War Two. The number of people slaughtered at Jasenovac, most of whom were Serbs, Jews, Roma and opponents of the Ustasha regime, totals in the hundreds of thousands.
About 1,000 prisoners rose up against their executioners on April 21-22, 1945, but only 118 escaped from the Jasenovac extermination facility operated by fanatical Croatian Ustasha allies of Adolf Hitler.
Speaking amid fields and mounds of mass graves of Serbian, Jewish and Roma (Gypsie) victims of the Ustasha Croat genocide, Republika Srpska Premier Milorad Dodik said that the very existence of the Republika Srpska within Bosnia is a guarantee against any repetition of such crimes against the Serbs and all of its other residents, regardless of their ethnicity.
Premier Dodik said the existence of Republika Srpska represents the national will of the Serbian people and must therefore never be questioned. He said that while Serbs cannot forget nor forgive the Croatian-led genocide committed against them, they are ready and willing together with other nations for a world of peace.
Dodik said that for Bosnia to be a true home for its Serbian citizens, there must be a confession that the ultimate crime of genocide was committed against the Serbs in World War Two, during which Croatia occupied and annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina as well as part of Serbia. He said the failure by Bosnia’s Croats and Muslims to accept any responsibility for the slaughter, coupled with the postwar failure to prosecute the perpetrators had blocked reconciliation and contributed to modern-day fighting across the entire region.
Speaking of the civil wars following the string of unilateral secessions from the former Yugoslavia, Dodik criticized what he described as an obvious anti-Serb bias in war crimes prosecutions that were conducted almost exclusively against the Serbs. He said that, “All of Bosnia’s nations suffered victims, but they also harbored perpetrators. So far, crimes have been attributed only to the Serbian people, which is certainly false,” Dodik said.
Dodik stressed that each crime committed in the region must be addressed in a court of law to demonstrate that the crimes are the acts of individuals and not the will of any nation, categorically rejecting the concept of a criminal or genocidal people.
The Serb representative in Bosnia’s three-member collective presidency, Nebojsa Radmanovic, underlined that the Serbs are not seeking revenge but are merely demanding that the full truth be told about both the recent civil war in the region and about World War Two. He called for action in both fields.
Belgrade rabbi Isak Asiel led a prayer for the Jewish victims of the massive Jasenovac camp system. Roma Culture Museum Director Dragoljub Ackovic dedicated his remarks to the Roma victims. Also joining them at the podium was Chairman Erim Balaila Ram Doron of a group representing former prisoners of war.
Among the high profile guests were Serbian President Boris Tadic, Republika Srpska President Rajko Kuzmanovic, and Bosnian Foreign Minister Sven Alkalaj. No Croatian officials attended the memorial ceremony.
A crowd of thousands included aging survivors, relatives of the dead, representatives of ethnic groups and international officials working in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They came from across the Balkan region by car and bus, walking in line to the ceremony along red pathways between graves now covered by green lawns. The death camp facility was demolished after the prisoner uprising in an effort to hide the crime.
April 11, 2010 XINHUA
Ping
I found an old movie on Youtube a while ago about this...
In the end they said it was the only time so many had escaped from a concentration camp...
It was an heroic effort...
We will never forget!
No justice NO Peace!
Good. Thank you, Boka. Croatia’s Jasenovac, and don’t take this the wrong way, makes some of German camps look, well, more “humane”.
Only people who understand just exactly what went on in Jasenovac will know exactly what I’m talking about.
When the actions of the Croats against the Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies in the Independent State of Croatia make the Nazis look “tame” by comparison, well then you can pretty much imagine...
*****
This where the Croatian apologists start to rewrite history by claiming Cetnik collaboration with the Italians. The Italians were so horrified by what the Ustasa did that they had to start protecting the Serbs from wholesale slaughter.
Apparently your thread regarding the Vatican and the holocaust was pulled, hopefully the Catholic apologists won’t pollute this thread either.
Will the Vatican ever own up however?
Did you get a chance to see the conversation I had with that nutcase that was trying to tell me Croats are Muslims? :D
It was jaw dropping.
In a word, NO.
You know I've been studying this WWII Ustase genocide material for 25 years or more, but something just dawned on me last week -- an answer to a question I wasn't even asking: "Why did Pope Pius remain silent to the Holocaust against the Jews?"
Answer: Because Jasenovac and the Ustase genocide against the Serbs came FIRST and condemning the genocide against Serbs would have put his Catholic Croatia project at risk. Once Pius kept his mouth shut on the Ustase genocide of Serbs (often with Catholic clergy as the perpetrators), Hitler had him over a barrel. Anything he might say would look hypocritical while his people were doing the same thing to Serbs in Croatia.
Ahh... very good. That makes sense.
The Sub-prefect is largely about how Butler got hounded for his writings on Stepinac and the Ustase.
In the Artukovich file, Butler traces war criminal Artukovich's stay in Ireland before he got to the US -- who supported him and housed he and his family while Artukovich hid out, before coming to the US.
Butler paid a heavy price for outing the Roman Catholic link to the Ustase -- as he says, it would have destroyed a man with less means.
Very interesting analysis, it has some legs.
Jasenovac was up and running a full year before Auschwitz was built, and even before The Final Solution for the Jews was fully developed.
Pope Pius XII had the opportunity to speak out against the practice of genocide when the victims were primarily Serbs and Gypsies, and it would have not been a criticism of Hitler because the perpetrators were Croats, not Germans. As a matter of fact, Hitler didn't like the Croat genocide of Serbs because it was creating even greater resistance to the Germans by the Serbs outside Croatia.Instead, the Vatican described the mass slaughter of Serbs by the Ustase as "teething pains of a new state".
By the time that the Final Solution got under way, it was too late. If Pope Pius didn't speak up for his fellow Christians being slaughtered in the name of the Catholic Church, he wasn't going to speak up for the Jews being murdered by Hitler.
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