Black Chronicle of Croatian History: Methods Used to Rehabilitate Ustashe and Stigmatize Antifascists
Depravity and Now
Feral Tribune, Split, Croatia, December 29 1997
by Zivko Gruden, Toni Gabric and Ivica BuljanAs the Croatian daily with the highest circulation has recently reported, the Zagreb Commission for the naming and renaming of streets has these days "yet again postponed the discussion about the renaming of Marshal Tito square, while it will carefully consider the request for the renaming of December victims street to St. Peter street". The latter part of this information caused confusion among the inhabitants of Zagreb because it is well known that Zagreb has had St. Peter street (which starts at St. Peter church) for ages, while it has recently lost its sDecember victims street. As if it could have a street which would with its name commemorate sixteen hostages (the best known of whom was professor Bogdan Ogrizovic, a son of Croatian writer Milan Ogrizovic) who were hanged in December 1943 by the authorities of Independent State of Croatia [NDH - puppet fascist state in Croatia during W.W.II] along the main street in Zagreb Dubrava in retaliation for the attack of Croatian anti-fascists on a German ammunitions storage dump near Sesvete?!
The Zagreb December victims street has suffered the destiny of hundreds of thousands of streets and squares all over Croatia whose names had been changed since 1990 in order to (in yet another way) suppress the memory of a partly glorious and partly ignominious period in Croatian history and thus obtain a tabula rasa for the rewriting of neo-history.
The first part of the above information is, on the other hand, yet another one in a series of the signals by the commission for the renaming of streets to the Presidential residence in Pantovcak; the commission is asking whether, perhaps, the time is ripe to evict the best known Zagorec [Josip Broz Tito; Zagorje is a region north from Zagreb] in Croatian history from the Croatian capital. It is pointless to speculate what the President will take into account in his evaluation of the current situation and what his final decision will be. Zagreb's Marshal Tito square was nearly renamed Mile Budak square at the beginning of 1993; however, after protests by the veteran antifascist fighters who fought in north-western Croatia during W.W.II, instead of Marshal Tito square, Mile Budak was given Duro Salaj street [another antifascist fighter from W.W.II]; a week later, after additional protests, Ustashe vice-president lost that street as well; the explanation given by the authorities was that the decision about the renaming of the street, reported by all the daily papers, had never been made.
However, that was an exception. The Ustashe vice-president and signatory of racial laws was given streets in numerous Croatian cities. Many of them are still named after him: for example the one in Split, in spite of recent protests after the condemnation of the criminal NDH regime in the statement by the Republic of Croatia which preceded the establishment of the diplomatic relations with Israel. Judging by the this summer's interviews with president Tudman in Jerusalem Post and his chief of staff Hrvoje Sarinic in Globus, local naughty boys bear sole responsibility for such names and the Presidential office "has taken steps" against them. Surprisingly, these "steps" haven't produced any results so far.
Susak's Denials
No one has ever blamed local power brokers for the change of the name of Victims of Fascism square in the summer of 1990, only a few months after the victory of HDZ in the first multi-party elections; this change gave the signal for the mass removal of the traces of antifascism in the names of streets and squares. On the contrary: Tudman himself, rejecting many protests from all over the world, defended that move as firmly as if it were his own. Why was that so important to him? What was the meaning of that act?Those who were confused at first, quickly figured out the message: there was no fascism in NDH. NDH was not a fascist state and, therefore, there were not any victims of fascism in it. The Ustashe emigrants and their followers all over the world have insisted on that since the end of W.W.II, realizing that Nazi-fascism had been so discredited that they could not survive and have hope for the future if they didn't distance themselves from it.
The formula for "distancing" Ustashe from fascism was very simple and has remained in use until today. Minister of Defense, Gojko Susak, used this formula when asked in an interview about his attitude with respect to "Tudman's antifascism". "What antifascism?" replied Susak, "there was no fascist party in NDH!".
Representatives in the Parliament
Therefore, there was no fascist party in NDH, and hence, there was no fascism and, consequently, no antifascism. However, this formula couldn't satisfy historian and former Partisan Franjo Tudman. Clearly, after carefully thinking about the problem and with the goal of satisfying all interested parties, Tudman arrived at the magic formula which was announced in his speech at the first congress of HDZ in February 1990: "NDH was not only a simple 'quisling' state and 'fascist crime', but also an expression of historical desire of the Croatian people for its independent state".That formula provided common ground for everyone and everything: even those who didn't have doubts about the criminal and quisling nature of the Ustashe state could allow that a portion of the Croatian people may have hoped that NDH was the fulfillment of "centuries long" dreams about the independence; on the other hand, those who had adamantly denied that NDH had been a fascist and quisling state could point out that in the above quoted sentence Dr. Franjo Tudman only stated that NDH had been "the expression of the historical desire of the Croatian people for its independent state"; the rest, that it was a quisling state and a fascist crime was put between the quotes (which hadn't been noticed by the careless), distancing himself from these (dis)qualifications and even contradicting them to a certain extent.
Academician Dubravko Jelcic felt very comfortably within the scope of that magic Tudman's formula when, this past Spring, at the commemoration in Bleiburg, which was broadcast by Croatian TV, as the envoy of the president of the Croatian parliament he stated that the army of NDH was not a fascist army, that its members were exclusively led by the idea of the Croatian state, that they died only because they were Croats and, furthermore, that there were more antifascists among the Ustashe than among the partisans.
The president of the Parliament, academician Vlatko Pavletic also hadn't strayed from the magic formula when speaking a year before at the same place and on the same occasion; he asserted that "Bleiburg is the generic term for the suffering of Croats who were betrayed by those in whom they had believed until the last moment". Pavletic performed his duty equally well when, at roughly the same time, on the occasion of the celebration of 50 years since the victory over fascism, he stated that the struggle against fascism and nazism "had the support of the whole Croat people". Dr. Nedeljko Mihanovic also didn't go amiss when he stated that "Croats were the first antifascists in Europe and the world"; the same is probably true for Luka Bebic who discovered, along the lines of Jelcic's statement, that "the Partisans, but also the majority of NDH military units, fought against fascism".
Bulldozer Attack on Monuments
True, someone might have felt provoked to ask how was it possible that in such an antifascist country, year after year, with participation of top state officials and direct TV broadcasts, only the members of the Army which throughout W.W.II fought on the side of Germany and Italy are honored, while at the same time thousands of memorials to fallen members of the antifascist Partisan army have been destroyed by vandals or, in the best case (with exceptions mostly in those regions where HDZ never managed to win in local elections) have beenremoved and placed into dark cellars; how is it that, out of 450,000 Croats who, as the former president of the parliament Dr. Nedjeljko Mihanovic at the time boasted, actively participated in the struggle against fascism, not a single one deserved that a unit of the present Croatian Army be named after him, while several famous individuals who fought on the side of nazi-fascism were honored in this way; how come that a person, who as an official of NDH signed on several occasions racist decrees (which had been preserved, as documents, in books, and in the past also in museums) has not only been honored by a high decoration of the Republic of Croatia but also almost became its ambassador; how come that the contemporary Germany doesn't even think about resurrecting swastika as its state symbol, although such an act could be defended with an argument that that sign has been used for centuries before Hitler so that it is stupid and meaningless to link it to Nazism, and that the contemporary Croatia so gladly and in spite of all objections, protests and warnings, reaches for the exclusive symbols of NDH, the state which was a loyal ally, follower and practitioner of the racist and genocidal ideology and politics of the Nazi Germany; how come that on the contemporary political scene Croatia is the only country in the world with a legally registered political party (HOP) whose founder [Ante Pavelic, Ustashe leader] was one of the heads of state in Hilter's New Europe... similar questions could continue forever.
Myth About Jazovka
Further developing the magic formula, its moderate followers told us that Ustashe were not golden boys, but neither were the Partisans. That had to be proven with material evidence. Immediately after HDZ won power, Jazovka ravine was discovered near Zagreb, with a lot of media fanfare; it was probably supposed to become a counterpart of Jasenovac. The alleged number of the victims thrown into Jazovka (captured members of the NDH military units and civilians who were after the war killed by the Partisans) was immediately estimated at 20,000 and by today it has reached 60,000. However, the Commission which at the time was established by the Parliament with the mission to carefully research the victims of Jazovka and informing the public about them, never announced its results. Maybe because, according to the information coming from the then prime minister Josip Manolic, in Jazovka, instead of tens of thousands, only the remains of 245 persons were found and it was assumed that the remains were of the Ustashe who had died or been shot in the battle for Krasic, in the last days of 1942.The myth about tens of thousands of victims in Jazovka has nevertheless survived, as at the time the myth about hundreds of thousands of victims in Jasenovac. The campaign around the victims from Jazovka has given impetus to the founding of the Parliamentary commission for the investigation of the war victims and victims in the post-war period; the Commission, while led by Vice Vukojevic, tried very hard to prove Vukojevic's conviction that the Partisans were a gang of murderers; for obvious reasons, Tudman didn't like that and, consequently, the involvement of Vukojevic in that project was short lived.
Nevertheless, Tudman never denied that he had borrowed from Vukojevic the idea about the conversion of the Jasenovac memorial park into the "park commemorating all Croatian war victims", as he stated in his State of the Croatian State and Nation Address in 1995. The plan to convert the memorial to the victims of the largest Ustashe death-camp, which has been and still is a symbol of the genocidal and racist nature of the Ustashe state, into a "memorial to all Croatian war victims" provoked extremely strong reactions abroad, especially in the USA and Tudman had to pull back. The future will tell whether he has definitely given up on this idea or whether this was just a tactical withdrawal.
Granic's Results
Croatian minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Mate Granic has on one occasion listed four conditions without which Croatia will not be able to join European integrations: antifascism, parliamentary democracy, market economy and respect for human rights. It can be regarded as justifiable that Croatia, as a "society in transition", as a country which has just come out of a war, with relatively humble economic base, has had problems with the latter three conditions. But, it boggles one's mind that her antifascist character is frequently questioned in the international community having in mind its true contribution to the antifascist forces (domestic and foreign) in W.W.II. And that would be surprising, if it weren't due to the Croatian present which, except through commemorative grotesques, rejects its antifascist heritage and has been trying to reshape history, finding inspiration in its darkest and most shameful segments.When in the statement which followed the establishment of the diplomatic relations between Croatia and Israel, the Croatian side qualified the Ustashe regime during NDH as a quisling and criminal regime, without quotation marks, a domestic commentator noted that on that occasion the Republic of Croatia has for the first time since its founding unequivocally distanced itself from NDH and that "this was effectively a ban on Ustashe in Croatia". Was it really necessary that the description of NDH as a quisling and criminal state be dictated to Croatia by the diplomacy of a foreign country?
Someone may point out that that is also a sign that the situation is improving. True, there are such indicators: even the leader of HSP, Anto Dapic, who had until recently enjoyed posing under Poglavnik's portrait, celebrated April 10 and listed Pavelic and Budak among his favorite writers, was recently deeply offended when Ivan Jakovcic said that HSP was a pro-Ustashe party!
Franjo Tudman: "Bespuca Povijesne Zbiljnosti: Rasprava o Povijesti i Filozofiji Zlosilja", Nakladni Zavod Matice Hrvatske, Zagreb, 1989
Bullet Faster Than The Truth
Without any intention of trying to please the current president, we must emphasize that this is a seminal work; it not only anticipates, but also outlines a program for the events which marked the 90's in this region. "Wastelands" also offer a historical and philosophical framework for numerous later interpretations of history and contemporary politics, either by the ideologues from the ruling party, or the members of the patriotic Croatian opposition parties. The basic idea of the book is expressed at the very beginning, with this quote from Shakespeare:"Here Someone Murders With Impunity
While Others are Sentenced for a Single Mistake"
The manner in which those verses are interpreted in Tudman's book, and later implemented by him and his followers, indicated that the unfortunate English bard had managed to put together in the sixteenth century the implementation motto of the contemporary Croatian politics.
The basic idea of this esseyistic-quasi-historiographic-quasi-philosophical mish-mash, can be summed up without too much simplification as: people have always killed and slaughtered each other and that is sad, but nothing special. Hitler's madness in W.W.II isn't praiseworthy, but isn't unique in history of humankind. The Fascist's treatment of the Jews is absolutely within the context and continuity of the European attitude with respect to that Asiatic people throughout the centuries; also, the crimes against Jews were additionally (because it has been proved that history is written by victors!) exaggerated by the Allies. After all, isn't it true that in 1940 when Germans entered the Netherlands many Jews committed suicide, out of fear or desperation (see page 148).
As was demonstrated in the book, people have always exterminated each other, still do and will continue to do that in the future; consequently, how can someone have objections when we, Croatian patriotic idealists, see in NDH the fulfilment of our centuries long dream, or when in the Patriotic war a few bullets are fired carelessly now and then? This must be the first time in history that here without sanction someone criticizes democratically elected, independent and sovereign authorities, while in the Hague, they try for a single mistake!?
Hrvoje Sosic: "Croatian Political Dictionary", Tiskara Rijeka, Rijeka, 1993
Snake from Gulag
A political pamphlet on 1200 pages, envisioned as a lexicographic expression of HDZ's political concept. These two elephantine books which, from a historiographical, political science, economical, journalistic or simply esthetic point of view, are totally worthless, in normal circumstances would have been a totally insignificant phenomenon on the shelves of bookstores in Croatia. In the best case, they could be used as a material for an international conference of psychiatrists. However, they are given significance by the fact that Sosic was among the founders of the party which has ruled Croatia for eight years, that he is serving a second term of office in the upper Chamber of the Parliament, appointed by the president of the republic as one of the most deserving citizens, and that his "Dictionary" is absolutely based on the "spiritual atmosphere" which HDZ spreads from its party headquarters, with assistance of the state infrastructure.It is hard to discern whether the author is trying to be witty or whether he unintentionally produces hilarious results but in the book he very seriously "explains" entries such as "member of Social Democratic party", "snake in bosom", "Croatian Communist gulag", "Falian [sic] strategy of Tudman the warrior" (on three pages!!!), "best" (of course HDZ and Tudman are the best)...
The words "fascism", "antifascism", "Ustashe movement", "Ante Pavelic" were suppressed from the consciousness, and are not even mentioned in Sosic's phantasms. On the other hand, East German secret police STASI is mentioned as an institution of great importance for Croatia. On the other hand, Ksenija Urlicic who "comes from the depths of the Croatian political opposition and is a metaphor for those political oppositionists... who belong to the Croatian political opposition from their 'birth'," receives the whole two pages, while, for example, Croatian Party of rights [HSP] isn't even mentioned.
"Decapitation of Croatia in Karadordevo", authorized transcript, editor-in-chief: Milan Piskovic, Preface: Sime Dodan, Conclusion: Marko Veselica, Meditor, Zagreb, 1994
Miko and Savko
The book contains the authentic transcript of the legendary meeting in Karadordevo, in 1971, based on the material found in the Archive of the Central Committee of the Croatian League of Communists. It is definitely a very interesting material; unfortunately, the publisher made a mistake in deciding to add Dodan's and Veselica's comments to the text. They used this opportunity for a delayed showdown with Savka Dabcevic Kucar, Miko Tripalo and Srecko Bijelic for whom they had been bearing a grudge since 1970.Thus we obtained a book which instead of an objective depiction of the historical intra-party clashes offers one-sided attacks whose purpose is to discredit the then leaders of an opposition party. "Savka and Tripalo didn't know how to position themselves as the defenders of Croatia and instead blamed others for the 'contrarevolution', showing readiness for the co-operation in bureaucratic battles", is the basic Dodan's thought. He continues: "The most important thing for them was to please serbo-yugo-lovers, who constituted their Praetorian guard, and every demand of Croats for equality was labeled as nationalism and chauvinism". Dodan says that Savka "announced a purge and persecution of Croats in hope that serbo-communists will allow her to be in charge of that, instead of Moka and Milutin, Dragosavac- serbo-orthodox and others". Nothing new; it's been known for a while that Dodan has more talent for zoology than for (civilized) politics. In conclusion, Veselica writes all about thousands of years of Serbia's attempts to destroy Croatian people and its state, from pre-historic times until Slobodan Milosevic.
Sime Dodan: "Bosna and Hercegovina, a Croatian land", Meditor, Zagreb, 1994
The Night of Coneheads
Main sponsors of this publications are Agrokor, Podravka and Privredna Banka. Who would have guessed that reviews of old books could give material for a recent upheaval among the tycoons?!Dodan's work was written at the time of worst clashes between Croats and Muslims in the central Bosnia, and was published in the year of the Washington Agreement. Nevertheless, his intention to provide intellectual back-up for those parts of the ruling party and Croatian political corpus who at the time couldn't accept neither the peace nor the idea of the sovereign Bosnia-Hercegovina, is obvious. The main point in the book, and it is covered on many pages, is that Bosna is historically a Croatian land, that Bosnia belonged to Croatia in the early mediaeval times, that the majority of Bosnian population used to be and are still Croats, and that mediaeval Bosnian kings were ethnic Croats.
The proof for that, among others, is that their surnames ended on "-an" (Kotromanici, of course?), which is a typical Croat surname (Tudman is the main proof), which at the same time points at the Iranian roots of the Croatian people. Historian Nada Klaic has never noticed this, consequently, her work is harmful for Croatia. Now, you be smart with this. How would Koloman [a Hungarian king] react to that?
Dodan quotes Draganovic's and Mandic's research according to which 95 percent of Muslims are actually Croats, and for this occasion even 30 percent of half-humans with pointy heads, as the author of the book usually refers to Serbs in his public appearances, have become Croats. "Bosnia-Hercegovina has always been Croatian; it is a Croatian land and there are historical, ethnic, and geopolitical reasons for that", concludes Dodan his observations.
Aleksandar Vojnovic: "NDH in Belgrade", Naklada P.I.P.-Pavic, Zagreb, 1995
Graves in Wheat
The book contains archive material, mostly reports about the political situation in Serbia and the public mood in Belgrade, which were sent by the NDH consulate in Belgrade between 1941 and 1944 to its superior Ministry in Zagreb. The idea was to demonstrate, based on the original historical documentation, that all assumptions about hermetically closed border between Croatia and Serbia [during W.W.II] are baseless, "although that could be expected taking into account well known relations between the two countries and all that came with them". That "all that came" is the worst accusation of the Ustashe and Nedic [leader of the Serbian quisling regime in Belgrade] regimes that can be found in the book. Another question arising in the context of the book can be phrased as: if the "motherland" of Croatian Serbs didn't care too much about the persecution of the Serbs by NDH, but instead maintained some sort of diplomatic relations, why should we care about those pogroms today?Each one of over one hundred documents in the book starts with a stylized memo with an Ustashe coat of arms and ends with the official stamp of the NDH consulate in Belgrade. We wouldn't want it to be interpreted that anyone publishing archive material from NDH must apologize for that, but... fascination with something like fascist coats of arms and stamps at least brings into question the good taste of the publisher.
Ivan Tolj, Nikola Bicanic, Kemal Mujcic: "For Croatia", Croatian Ministry of Defense, Zagreb, 1992
Let us Speak
The book should be used for the moral-political indoctrination of new Army conscripts. The front page displays eight portraits of the greatest sons of Croatian people: Tomislav the unifier; Starevic the father; Radic the victim; Stepinac the martyr; and Franjo Tudman the restorer. The greatness of the last one couldn't fit on one picture, so that it had to be spread over two: one was borrowed from the HDZ election poster, while on the other one Tudman is depicted in his general's, oops, leader's uniform.In the part of the book dedicated to history, kings Tomislav, Kresimir, Zvonimir and Svacic received all together three pages, Starcevic eight, Radic nine, and Tudman - thirty two. A part of one of "leader's" speeches was used instead of an introduction, while an interview with him, entitled "I will pray to God, you liberate Croatia" was also included. Although the book is ordinary garbage, it can serve as a n illustration of the way in which HDZ, as early as 1992, in the middle of the war, worked on the establishment of its single-party army.
Ivan Omrcanin: "Military History of Croatia", Ivor Press, Washington, 1993
Muscular People
In the introduction, Omrcanin instructs us that Croats have 10,000 years old military history. He says: "We stepped into history as a thoughtful people, which head its own pantheon even in pre-history. Thus we know that our ancestors had big brains... Since we were such an independent and self-reliant people among all those prides of two-legged and four-legged creatures, we must have been muscular enough to resist all attacks and imprisonment".It must be the irony of folly that the author proclaims the Serb Svetozar Borojevic, Austro-Hungarian feldmarshal from W.W.I, for the most glorious Croatian warrior. Either a joker or a four-legged Croat, Omrcanin finishes his study about military history with the dedication to "Servs": "They pushed us out of Yugoslavia, they banished themselves from the UN, they pushed us into Bosnia-Hercegovina."
Ivo Rojnica: "Meetings and Experiences", DoNeHa, Zagreb, 1994
Occupation in 26 Pictures
Memories of the Ustashe administrator for Dubrovnik, and later an emigrant, on about 300 pages, cover the period between 1938 and 1975. Rojnica describes his work in the expulsion of Serbs and their forced conversion into Catholicism, mostly in eastern Hercegovina and Dubrovnik."Just before the return to Dubrovnik I was again phoned by Lorkovic and told that the government has accepted German proposal to transport 250,000 Slovenes, whom the Germans want to expel from Slovenia [to Serbia], while we could at the same time expel 250,000 Christian Orthodox Serbs to Serbia." etc. etc.
Manipulating with data about 420 Serbs converted to Catholicism, the author also mentions the conflict with Muslims regarding the settling of eastern Hercegovina once all of the local Serbs were "cleansed". Because of his hard work for the Croatian cause, Rojnica was, of course [zna se, HDZ electoral slogan], after the establishment of the independent Croatian state, decorated by president Tudman.
"Who are Croats and Where did They Come From: a Revision of an Ethnogenesis", Collection of works, Scientific Society for the Study of the Ethnogenesis of Croats
Celtic Republic
A collection of works whose goal is to prove the origin of Croats going at least 4,500 years to the past. Most of the authors are religious persons or amateur historians who speculate about various theories on the origin of Croats: Gothic, Caucasian, Illyrian, Iranian...We can find the claims that the ethnogenesis of our people dates back to prophet Zoroaster, the founder of dualistic mazdaism [anciant Iranian religion, also known as Zoroastrianism]. Led by unbridled currents in the consciousness of the collaborators in this publication we wonder through the expanses of Kurdistan, and one of them (certain Robert Strauli from Zurich) has concentrated his efforts on proving that Croats and Serbs have "totally different origin as nations": according to him, the former are of the Celtic origin, while the latter hail from antic Tribali, descendants of the numidian Sarmatians.
The editorial board for the publication consists of Dr. Antun Bauer, professor of history in Croatian studies department and faculty of Theology Dr. Franjo Sanjek and Nedjeljko Kujundzic, president of the Croatian academy of Educational Sciences at the Zagreb University. The project was sponsored by the president of the Republic, academician Dr. Franjo Tudman.
Ante Pavelic: "Experiences", Naklada Starcevic, Zagreb, 1994
Early Slime
"There is no thing more sacred than law, no struggle more sacred than legal struggle with legal means". Believe it or not, this is the first sentence in Ante Pavelic's memoir. In "Experiences" the author deals with the period before 1918, so that the reader is, unfortunately, denied his vision of the horrible events which Pavelic himself has created. He doesn't hide his literary ambition; the writer of the conclusion, academician Dubravko Jelcic is astounded by Pavelic's style. He says: "Experiences of Ante Pavelic are an excellent book of memoirs; there are very few books of such quality in this genre in our literature; nevertheless, I suspect that among us there are people who will deny this with all of their might."
Ivo Omrcanin: "Croatia 1941-1945", own edition
All Our Servs
In a voluminous study, on about 500 pages, Omrcanin starts with the claim that "all Croatian writers in communist Croatia, writers, historians, educators, scientists, as Vjekoslav Kaleb, Ivan Supek and Franjo Tudman, in general write as other communists and are therefore closer to Servs than the truth". On the other hand, the author gives his "true statistics" according to which in 1981 there were 53,150 Serbs in Croatia, or 1.1 percent of population, while all those who declared themselves as Yugoslavs are automatically counted as Croats by the author. In the same manner he uses the data about the number of the victims in W.W.II. His "scientific statistics" show that 200,000 Serbs and 600,000 Croats died in W.W.II.
Eugen Dido Kvaternik: "Memories and Observations 1925-1945", Nakladnicko Drustvo Starcevic, Zagreb, 1995
Court Dramas
A fan of great personalities from NDH, Ivan Starcevic, with financial support from the Croatian Ministry for Science and Technology gives us an opportunity to learn what sorts of worries troubled the founder of concentration camp system in NDH, Eugen Dido Kvaternik. Thus, we can find everything about the court intrigues initiated against him by Marija Pavelic, about his assessment of Pavelic's responsibility for the fall of NDH and all the evil which has happened.Kvaternik deals only with politics, failing to remember or observe the fact that it was him who directly sent to death several tens of thousands of Serbs, Croats, Romany, Jews, Muslims... Apparently, he didn't know about certain Jasenovac, Gradiska and other similar idyllic places, which could be another explanation for the support of the Croatian authorities for this project; the official state policy is to try to expunge such places as efficiently as possible from the collective memory.
Ivan Kosutic: "Croatian Domobrani in W.W.II", Nakladni Zavod Matice Hrvatske, Zagreb, 1992
All Heroes
The author of this monograph claims that all military histories are glorious and marvelous, especially, of course, ours. From the pen of a former graduate of the Domobran military academy and editor of the radio program about rural matters after the war, we can learn about almost supernatural capabilities of Croatian soldiers, about their soldierly virtues, about courage, patriotism, and preserved honor of Croatian Domobrans in W.W.II, etc.Most of the book is dedicated to the fight of the Croatian legionaries on the Eastern front [in Soviet Union]. There is a quote from Ante Pavelic's letter in which Poglavnik expresses wishes of "numerous Croats to take part in the struggle against the enemy of all freedom loving nations as soon as possible, in order to contribute to the new order in Europe".
Dominik Mandic: "Croats and Serbs - Two Ancient Different Nations," Nakladni Zavod Matice Hrvatske, Zagreb, 1990
Star Treck
Franciscan monk from Siroki Brijeg [in Bosnia-Herzegovina] Dominik Mandic is trying to prove at all cost that Croats and Serbs are actually so different that it is simply impossible to believe that they originated from the same planet, let alone that they have certain common roots or, God forbid, similarities. Along the way, Mandic discovers that Croats and Serbs belong to two different racial types. He claims that Croats are of Iranian origin, while Serbs are even denied Indo-Iranian origin and sent to Asia Minor to the territory of ancient Sard. A majority of serious historians believes that this book is nothing more than a political pamphlet.
Translated on 3/15/98
