JU-I (Amselfeldrede –Izetbegovic –Tudjman) 1. Ich ... - Labournet

toriography, newspaper articles, TV talk shows, naming of military units after infamous Ustashe
"knights", all the way to restaurants with names like "Poglavnik", "Coffee Bar Ustasha"
and similar reminders of the genocide of the Jews in ISC. Not far from the house in which I
live, one can find Poglavnik's picture and a bust in a bar, so that the patrons can get the idea
about the owner's political leanings. I am convinced that you will agree with me that it is unimaginable
that in todays Germany restaurants and hotels would be named after the Fuhrer or
the SS officers, or that a Fuhrer's picture could be displayed in them. In Germany, such things
are regulated by the law. We in Croatia apparently have more democracy than Germans. If it
is true, as you said, that it is "improbable that in Croatia we see the strengthening of fascism,"
one faces a question: why does not the president and the government protest against the rehabilitation
of the criminal ISC? It is true, as you said, that in Croatia "there is no antisemitism
but there are a few antisemites." After Auschwitz, antisemitism can hardly be en vogue. The
Croatian president and the government on several occasions, have expressed their favorable
inclination towards the Jewish community. Was that because of some special love towards the
Jews? Or in order to score a few good PR points in the USA? - I leave the answer to you.
It is unthinkable that in democratic Germany an ex-Nazi propaganda boss could appear on TV
and discuss the benefits of the Third Reich. On the other hand, one of the Zagreb TV channels
showed in 1992 a program with the boss of Ustashe propaganda, Daniel Crljen. The same one
who during the ISC declared: "Croatia has radically solved its Jewish problem."
Points scored away from the Home field
You said that "the tendencies described in the press (I suppose foreign!) are marginal and have
no support from the president or the government." Very good. However, a striking question is
why that same president and the government do not publicly and decisively condemn numerous
cases of rehabilitation of Ustashe ISC. Nothing would be easier, since they have a total
control over the daily press and the electronic media.
For the Jewish community, the instances of Ustashe rehabilitation can hardly be "marginal."
Especially not for those Jews who survived the holocaust and who after returning to their homeland
found out that they were left alone in this world, without a mother and a father, without
brothers and sisters, without their children. All of them have disappeared without a trace
in Ustashe branch offices of "the final solution", in Jasenovac, Stara Gradiska, Jadovna, on
Pag. By the way, the last several hundred Jews in Croatia, mostly elderly, were turned over to
Eichmann, i.e. sent straight to the Nazi gas chambers. Cardinal Stepinac tried to save Zagreb
Chef Rabbi, Miroslav Freiberger and his family. He did not succeed. Eichmann's word had
more importance for the Poglavnik than that of Cardinal Stepinac.
Would it therefore be marginal for you, Mr. Lustig, if you were facing today the rehabilitation
of racist butchers from Auschwitz? You also said: "claims that the present government encourages
fascism are absolutely false." If that is true, I would be grateful if you could explain
how that squares with the fact that the approximately 2000 monuments to the fighters against
and victims of fascism have been destroyed in Croatia [since 1991] ( by "unknown" perpetrators);
memorials for the people who were cruelly killed simply because they had been born
Jews, or Serbs or Gypsies or were Croatian antifascists! Also, do not you find it perplexing, as
an Auschwitz survivor, that president Tudjman was so keen to erase the Victims of Fascism
Square name? I believe that you will agree with me, when I say that those fighters against
fascism in Croatia sacrificed their lives in the common struggle of the humanity against the
deadly darkness which threatened to turn all of Europe in a continental Auschwitz. Why have
not the Croatian authorities condemned or why have not they decisively confronted that barbarian
destruction of the memorials for the victims of fascism? Or maybe someone thinks that
the historical facts can be thrown into a black hole of oblivion, as did the Big Brother's "Ministry
of Truth" in Orwell's 1984?
Black Hole of Oblivion
In your Washington speech you said: "the number of Jews in Partisans was small." With that
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