Serbian president meets with Simon Wiesenthal Center chief

Serbian president meets with Simon Wiesenthal Center chief

The Serbian president and his guests spoke primarily about the progress made in converting the former WW2-era German Nazi concentration camp Staro Sajmiste (Old Fairgrounds) in Belgrade into a memorial complex, the statement said.

The memorial will also be a center for educating young people and a place that will, by promoting the truth, contribute to the perception of a more peaceful and secure future for all people, it added.

Another important topic of discussion was the work of the mixed Catholic-Orthodox Commission which deals with identifying historical facts about the role of WW2-era Croatian Roman Catholic cleric Alojzije Stepinac. The Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) Bishop Jovan informed Nikolic about this.

The president devoted special attention to the upcoming visit of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to the former Ustasha concentration camp Jasenovac - that existed in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) from 1941 until 1945 - which was the largest place of slaughter of Serbs, Jews and Roma during the Second World War in the territory of the former Yugoslavia.

The Serbian president also "stressed the importance of a complete comprehension of the historical facts related to the suffering of Serbs in the Second World War, and about informing the world public about those facts in order to create a basis that will ensure such a thing never happens again," said the statement.

Serbian First Deputy PM and Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic also received Efraim Zuroff on Thursday, when they jointly condemned attempts of revising WW2 history, "in Croatia, and across Europe."

"Particular attention during the meeting was devoted - with mutual condemnation thereof - to attempts of revising WWII history, manifested in Croatia by the present relationship towards Stepinac, (Mile) Budak and (Miro) Baresic, and at European level, and in some OSCE states, by attempts to erase all distinctions between fascism and communism," the Serbian Foreign Ministry said in a statement quoted by Tanjug.

Zuroff noted the project to build the Staro Sajmiste Holocaust Memorial Senter was significant for Serbia at national, regional and global level as it would raise awareness not only of the Jewish but, most of all, the Serb and Roma WW2 victims in the region, whom he said the world was "less aware of."