interview by Rade DRAGOJEVIC
NOVI LIST: What will be your response to the rumors about the existence of a camp in Jasenovac after 1945?
GOLDSTEIN: The board has decided that such assertions should be carefully and scientifically investigated. Our chief curator Jelka Smreka has already initiated some research projects regarding this topic. These projects will now be extended and intensified. We shall soon inform the public about the results.
Ustashe concentration camp Jasenovac was totally demolished in April 1945 and has not been reconstructed since. The ruins were cleared and the whole area was leveled to the ground. Documents clearly show that. Starting with the summer of 1945, several groups of prisoners worked on the clearing of the camp area, reconstruction of the nearby villages and the town of Jasenovac, construction of destroyed bridges and reconstruction of roads. Most of them were former NDH soldiers and German prisoners of war. In the autumn of 1945 600 prisoners were sent from a camp in Sisak (Viktorovac) to Jasenovac. They were kept in the center of the town, in the former forestry service building and several nearby houses, and guarded by a Partisan unit. They worked six days a week and on Sunday they were allowed to receive visitors and parcels. The official name of the group, which existed in Jasenovac for almost two years, was "institution for forced labor Sisak - working group Jasenovac". So far we have nine audio-video recordings and another ten statements taken from the former prisoners, residents of Jasenovac and members of the authorities after the war, including the commander of the working group, about all that. All the statements essentially agree and contribute to each other. The research continues in the archives and includes collection of additional statements.
Were there any executions in that period?
According to what we have found out so far, after April 1945 there were no mass executions in the town of Jasenovac and on the territory of the Commemorative Center Jasenovac. All the prisoners in the working group had been sentenced to regular prison sentences. We have found some indications that a mass execution of a group of prisoners from the Croatian Calvary took place in the spring of 1945 about 20 kilometers west from Jasenovac upstream on the bank of the Sava river. We have also learned that there may be some graves of Ustashe and German soldiers on the Bosnian bank of the river. We shall try to carefully investigate all that.
In the second half of June we shall present the first information obtained by then and in the autumn we shall probably organize a round-table discussion and thereby conclude the research into this topic. We shall invite researchers who have perhaps obtained documents that escaped our attention, so that we can check and add to our data. However, I can already say with confidence that based on hitherto checked data and collected documents and statements everything that took place in Jasenovac after the spring of 1945 and the territory of the current Jasenovac Commemorative Center could have given ground for speculation about the so-called post-war camp "Jasenovac II", but none of that is comparable or even remotely approaches the system of camps that existed in Jasenovac during the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). Comparisons are unsavory and cannot affect our view of the tragic suffering of the Jasenovac victims to whom the Commemorative Center is dedicated.
What was the conclusion of the board regarding the way in which the Croatian TV presented this year's commemoration?
The board expressed dissatisfaction with the manner in which the Croatian TV presented the event. The Croatian TV did not broadcast the event, and instead of a film about Jasenovac that would adequately present that concentration camp, the Croatian TV offered a film about Holocaust of Jews in various concentration camps. In our opinion that was insufficient and inappropriate for that occasion. We are aware of the existence of several documentary films about Jasenovac, such as the one by Bogdan Zizic, produced about 30 years ago, which would have been more appropriate for that occasion. We also expressed dissatisfaction with the way the parliament treated the commemoration and we shall inform both the parliament and the Croatian TV about our reactions.
Would you care to comment on the different approach to the presentation of Bleiburg and Jasenovac on the Croatian TV?
At the meeting of the board we decided not to comment on the events related to Bleiburg. I personally think that similarities and differences between Jasenovac and Bleiburg will have to be established at some point. I am preparing a paper about that, entitled "Jasenovac and Bleiburg".
My friend Zivko Kustic wrote about that and referred to some anonymous, but supposedly respected historians. I wonder if he would consider letting us know who these historians are, so that we could invite to the round-table debate about Jasenovac we plan to organize this autumn, so that they can present their documentation.