NEWLY EXPANDED WWII MEMORIAL OPENS IN CROATIA SANADER: SEĆATI SE USTAŠKIH ZLOČINA

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ZAGREB -- A newly expanded memorial at Croatia's infamous Jasenovac camp will open today.

A glass wall bearing the names 70,000 World War II concentration camp prisoners — a quarter of them children — is the focal point of the new memorial.

The ceremonial opening, which was to be attended by Croatian government officials and Jewish, Serb and Roma representatives — whose people suffered in the pro-Nazi Croat regime's 40 WWII camps — marks another step in Croatia acknowledging its vicious past after years of seeking to justify it.

A memorial was first built on the site in the 1960s and new work on the center was financed by the government with support from Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial and the Holocaust Museum in Washington.

Between 1941-45, thousands of those regarded "undesirable" by the WWII Croatian puppet state were taken to Jasenovac, where they were starved, tortured and killed.

The 1990s nationalist government of the late President Franjo Tudjman sought to diminish the Jasenovac crimes and revisionists put the number of those killed there at 35,000. Some Serbs claim 700,000 of them lost lives here.

Independent researches today estimate between 56,000 and 97,000 died at Jasenovac and Croatia's pro-Western governments that took power after Tudjman's death in 1999 denounced Nazism and fascism.

The head of the memorial, Nataša Jovičić insists the list is not complete and will be updated as new information arrive.

Jovičić, who also lost relatives in Jasenovac, said "a crime of genocide was carried out here on tens of thousands of people who had names." The list's aim was to "present victims by showing their individual fates, collective and individual suffering, their plans and hopes that were destroyed when their lives were taken."

The memorial also contains a multimedia information center, display of artifacts — including shackles, bandages for Jews, a drawing notebook of a child inmate and a woman's book of recipes — and an education center, where visitors could learn about fascism, Nazism and Holocaust.

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Jasenovac -- Otvorena je nova stalna postavka Memorijalnog muzeja Spomen-područja Jasenovac. Sanader: Ne zaboraviti ustaške zločine.

Svečanosti otvaranja postavke, koja sadrži poimenični popis žrtava Jasenovca, su, uz preživele logoraše, predstavnike političkih stranaka, diplomatskog kora i verskih zajednica, prisustvovali i predsednik Hrvatske Stjepan Mesić, predsednik parlamenta Vladimir Šeks i premijer Ivo Sanader, koji je poručio da se ustaški zločini ne smeju zaboraviti.

Mesić je rekao da novi Memorijalni muzej i Obrazovni centar imaju zadatak da informišu mlade o onome što je ustaški režim zaista bio, dodajući da "u novoj postavci treba da važi jedan zakon, a to je zakon istine".

Izrazivši u ime države poštovanje svim žrtvama Jasenovca, Sanader je rekao da se istina ne sme skrivati niti zaboraviti, te da ona ne može imati dva lica.

Rekavši da je Spomen-područje bitan deo hrvatske i evropske baštine, Sanader je napomenuo da će taj memorijalni muzej poučavati "da se ne zaborave zločini ustaškog režima".

Poimeničan popis 69.842 žrtve

Centralno mesto nove muzejske postavke zauzima "Poimeničan popis žrtava Koncentracionog logora Jasenovac", koji su izradili kustosi Spomen-područja i koji sadrži biografske podatke postradalih, podatke o etničkoj pripadnosti, načinu, mestu i vremenu stradanja, kao i izvore u kojima se svaka žrtva navodi poimenično.

Prema aktuelnom popisu, u jasenovačkom koncentracionom logoru i logoru u Staroj Gradiški ubijene su 69.842 osobe, od kojih 39.580 Srba, 14.599 Roma, 10.700 Jevreja, 3.462 Hrvata, kao i pripadnici drugih narodnosti.

Kako bi posetiocima omogućili uvid u što veći broj dokumenata, fotografija i druge muzejske i arhivske građe koja govori o zločinu, autori postavke multimedijalno su prikazali građu o logoru i pružili neposredan doživljaj ličnih svedočanstava žrtava zločina.

Baza podataka sadrži 35 obrađenih tema vezanih za osnivanje kvislinške tvorevine NDH, njene veze sa fašističkom Italijom i Trećim rajhom, informacije vezane za logor u Jasenovcu, ali i druge logore u Hrvatskoj, prikupljene biografije žrtava logora, s posebnim naglaskom na decu.

Spomen-područje Jasenovac osnovano je 1968. godine, a pre dve godine obnovljen je spomenik "Cvet" u Spomen-području, rad arhitekte Bogdana Bogdanovića.