Israeli ambassador says hate spreading around world like virus

Today, amid a pandemic that does not differentiate between men, women and children, we must rededicate ourselves to human solidarity, to common responsibility and respect, and to an uncompromising fight against antisemitism and hate, which are spreading around the world like a virus, the Israeli ambassador to Croatia said on Tuesday, the day before an event commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Jasenovac prisoner breakout.

According to the Jasenovac memorial centre, after allied bombings of the camp in March and April 1945, in which many of the camp facilities were destroyed, the camp's commander Vjekoslav Maks Luburic ordered that all the prisoners be killed and the camp be burnt down to cover up the crimes.

The last group of about 700 women were executed on the evening of 21 April 1945, when an order was given for the remaining 1,073 men to be relocated to a women's building in the eastern part of the camp.

Sensing what was going to happen to them, about 600 men led by Ante Bakotic decided to try to break out of the camp on the rainy Sunday morning of 22 April 1945. Only 92 inmates survived. A few hours afterwards, 167 prisoners working in a tannery mounted an escape attempt, with only 11 of them managing to escape.

Ambassador Mor stressed that one should recall the criminal nature of the so-called Independent State of Croatia and its policy towards Jews, Serbs and Roma, as well as antifascists.

We have the duty to invest maximum effort so that the memory of the victims is preserved and they are paid due respect, he said.

The Ustasha regime, one of the worst collaborationist regimes, committed horrible crimes in Jasenovac. The Ustasha leadership and its butchers were inspired by the Nazi ideology of antisemitism, racism, nationalism, religious intolerance and hate, the ambassador said, stressing the need to continue fighting against growing trends of historical revisionism.

Coming to terms with past crimes is a long journey on which one must embark with determination, courage and perseverance despite all the problems, said Ambassador Mor.

The Jasenovac concentration camp existed 1,337 days during the Second World War, and the Jasenovac memorial centre has identified and gathered information on 83,145 victims (39,570 men, 23,474 women and 20,101 children aged up to 14 years), who were killed because of their religious, ethnic or ideological affiliation.