On the occasion of the Jadovno Remembrance Day on Thursday, the president of the Jewish Municipality Zagreb, Ognjen Kraus, requested in the name of thousands who perished under the Ustasha greeting “For homeland ready”, a ban of the greeting and the Ustasha insignia and a ban of negating Ustasha crimes.
“At this place, in the name of thousands and thousands whose lives were ended here and in the other Ustasha death camps on the territory, under the war cry ‘For the homeland ready,’ or who were taken to Nazi death camps, I seek the prohibition of the usage of this greeting, of Ustasha insignia and symbols, as well as prohibition of negating Ustasha crimes and existence of concentration and collection camps of death,” Kraus said at the event.
Commemoration was held on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of establishing death camp Gospić-Jadovno-Pag, the first Ustasha death camp in the NHD. Jadovno was the central part of this camp situated in Velebit area, and it preceded horrors of Jasenovac.
“It would be a terrible thought that the NDH in 1941 had an easier time in getting rid of its Serbs, Jews, Roma, and communists, than the Republic of Croatia has in 2021 in getting rid of remembering their plight and the heritage of Ustasha ideology symbolized by the ‘For homeland ready’, said the president of the Serb national council (SNC), Milorad Pupovac.
In his speech, he wondered why anyone should be keen for one of “the most disgraceful greetings and expressions of patriotism in Croatian History” to never lose its civil right – right to official and public use.
“Is such insistence on defending this official Ustasha movement greeting and the so-called NDH a consequence of awareness of its ‘racial laws’ and genocidal crimes against Serbs, Jews and Roma which were made official precisely with the ‘For the homeland ready’? Or is this insistence a consequence of ignorance of what and whom this greeting permanently symbolises, and which has become increasingly more widespread over the past 30 years,” Pupovac asked.
Matić: We are bound to lead a policy of reconciliation
The president of the Split VeDRA (Veterans of Homeland War and Antifascists) association, Ranko Britvić, requested from the government to urgently legally ban the use of the controversial Ustasha greeting, sending a message that it is an obligation for all of us to always remember victims of the Ustasha terror.
Veran Matić, an envoy of the Serbian president, said that as he works on “reconciliation and recovery following the bloody breakup of the former joint state and the horrors experienced in these wars”, we must also build such politics of reconciliation related to the horrors of the WW2, and especially Jadovno and Pag.
“I consider it our duty towards innocent people who perished here. Towards generations for which we should secure freedom from crimes, moral elevation above crime and moral strength to achieve peace, life without hatred and reconciliation between people in Croatia and in Serbia and reconciliation between Croatia and Serbia,” Matić stressed in his speech.
The commemoration program started at the locality of Šaranove Jame, one of the 19 pits in the area of the Velebit mountain where prisoners had met their end, with Kaddish and Pomen (Serb orthodox prayer for the dead) being said for all the victims killed at that and other locations in the Velebit karst.
At the central monument at Jadovno, wreaths were laid by the Croatian government delegate Boris Milošević, Dragana Jeckov on behalf of the Croatian Parliament, Veran Matić as representative of the president of the Republic of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić, the president of the Jewish Municipality of Zagreb, Ognjen Kraus, and Milorad Pupovac on behalf of the SNC. Representatives of SAB (Association of antifascist fighters), VeDRA and embassies of Serbia and Austria also paid tribute to victims by laying wreaths at the monument.
Prison camp compound dissolved after 55 days
A commemoration was organized by the SNC in cooperation with the Coordination of Jewish Municipalities in Croatia, the Gornjokarlovačka eparchy and the Alliance of Antifascist fighters and antifascists in the Republic of Croatia.
The Ustasha camp Gospić-Jadovno-Pag was established and existed between the 18 and 24 June 1941 in the area of Čačić dolac, and the prisoners were mostly Serbs, followed by Jews and a smaller number of Croatian communists who were brought in from all over the then NDH.
The camp’s compound was dismantled after 55 days, around 22 August 1941, at the request of the Italian occupation authorities, who on the one hand feared mutiny among the local population, and on the other hand saw this as an opportunity of regaining territory.
This temporarily rescued more than 3,000 inmates from Pag, Stupačinovo, and Gospić, because they were then transported to Jastrebarsko, and later to Jasenovac, where a significant part of them perished. This action of the Italian occupation army saved lives of only 55 Jadovno prisoners. Jasenovac became the new centre for continued extermination of Serbs, Jews, and Roma, it was said at the event.