Jasenovac genocide victims commemorated

Jasenovac genocide victims commemorated

The camp, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) southeast of Zagreb, was set up in mid-1941 by Croatia's Ustasha regime, installed after Hitler overran what was then Yugoslavia. It was dismantled a few days after the attempted breakout in 1945.

The memorial museum that opened last year exhibits the names of about 70,000 people killed at the camp.

"This is a site of terrible crimes which does not allow us to forget that it happened," Croatian President Stjepan Mesić said at a ceremony held at the Jasenovac memorial complex.

Mesić warned against any revisionist attempts at history, alluding to the period in the 1990s after Croatia declared independence when late autocratic leader Franjo Tuđman played down the country's role in the killing of Serbs and Jews during World War II.

But the number of people murdered at Jasenovac - mainly Serbs, followed by Jews, Roma and anti-fascist Croatians - is still disputed, with estimates ranging between 100,000 as claimd by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and 700,000 as claimd by Belgrade.

The commemoration was attended by camp survivors, members of the victims' families, Croatian government representatives, ethnic minorities representatives, a Serb National Council delegation, members of antifascist organizations and resident ambassadors.

Serbia’s ambassador to Croatia Radivoje Cvetićanin and consuls Bojana Ristić and Mira Jegdić placed wreaths on behaf of Serbian president Boris Tadić.

Serb Orthodox Church representatives, including Jasenovac parson Slobodan Lalić were also present during the commemoration service, along with envoys of the Islamic community, Jewish municipalities and the Catholic Church.