AGREEMENT BETWEEN
THE UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM AND
THE REPUBLIKA SRPSKA
This Agrement is intended to confirm the understandings that you, on
behalf
of Republika Srpska (the "Republic") and we, on behalf of the United
States
Holocaust Memorial Museum (the "Museum"), an independent federal
establishment of the United States of America, have reached respecting
certain
items, documents and artifacts (the "Items") which belong to and were
itemized
from the Jasenovac concentration camp material.
1. The Republik recognizes the United States Holocaust memorial
Museum
in
Washington, D.C. as the appropriate institution dedicated to Holocaust
education
and rememberance that can provide proper care and conservation for the
Items. The Republic will be relinquishing custody and control of, and
delivering , the Items
to the custody of the Museum. From the time that the Republik
relinquishes such
custody and control, the Republic will also relinquish all of its
claims, of every
nature against the Museum, with respect to the Items and therefore will
hold the
Museum harmless with regard to the Items.
2 The Museum will accept the Items in its capacity as an institution
whose
primary mission is the remembrance of the Holocaust. Upon receipt of the
Items
the Museum has the authority to care for the Items in any manner it
determines to
be appropriate, in keeping with its legal and ethical obligations and
with its mission
of Holocaust remembrance.
3. The Republic and the Museum agree to cooperate in order to
effectuate
the transfer of the Items from the Republic to the Museum. The Museum
will
assume responsibility for the transportation of the Items to its
custody.
This Agreement embodies all the understandings between the Republic and
the
Museum respecting the Items. By signing below, the Republic and the
Museum
agree to be bound by the provisions of this agreement.
U.S. HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM REPUBLIKA SRPSKA
By : Daniel Saltsman (Signiture) By :
Milorad Dodik (Signiture)
Date : 10-27- 00
Date : 27/10/2000
Present to the surrender of the documentation and artifacts were: Mr.
Saltsman,
Mr. Dodik, Deputy Director of the Serb Republic Archive, Mr. Dusan
Vrzina, the
representative of the US Consulate in Sarajevo and a unit of the US
Marines. The
Marines hauled the big cargo away and loaded up their personnel carriers
with it,
and drove off. There were eight metal, nine wooden and four cardboard
boxes,
loaded up with over 25,000 pages of the original documentation of the
Croatian
crimes committed in the Camp, shackles for inmates, sculls and hair of
the victims,
irreplaceable photographs of the torture of the victims, stolen jewelry,
golden teeth
and dental bridges, a special curved knife for slitting jugular veins to
the Jasenovac
victims, among Croats known as the "Serbo-Cutter", paintings and other
valuables
taken from the slaughtered Serb, Jew, Gypcy and other inmates by
Croatian Ustashi.
It should be pointed out, however, that the representatives of the US
Holocaust
Memorial Museum tried to get hold of the Jacenovac Archive in a sneaky
way by
first contacting the long time guardian of this Archive, Mr. Simo Brdar,
who had
been in charge of it since 1991, when the Archive was stored in the
local library
of the town of Bosanska Dubica, close to the Jasenovac Camp site. They
came to Mr. Brdar and asked him to let them take over the archived
Jasenovac material,
a short time before snatching it away from the storage in Banja Luka, as
stated above.
Mr. Brdar declined their request to surrender to them then the entire
available
Jasenovac documantation. When learned of its location in Banja Luka, the
Memorial
representatives rushed there to promptly, and secretly, made a deal with
President
Dodik, installed in the seat by State Department, to take the Archive
into their custody
(see above). Of course, he promptly approved of since the business had
already been
arranged though the US Embassy in Sarajevo.
It should, however, be pointed out that Mr. Dodik had repeatedly turned
down similar
requests made by Dr. Milan Bulajic, Director of the Belgrade Museum of
the Victims
of Ustashi Genocide, worldwide known and recognized as the "Yugoslav
Wiesenthal". The Jasenovac Archive, on exhibition on the Jasenovac site
until was ransacked,
vandalized, and largely destroyed by the infamous Croatian ZNG( National
Guard) units
in September 1991. Yugoslav Army, that entered the Jasenovac complex in
October
1991 salvaged the remains of the original Jasenovac Archive. A
commission to preserve this material was set up. It decided to store the
decimated Archive in the Library of the town of Bosanska Dubica. And
this valuable evidence of the Croatian WWII crimes have gone to- the
perpetrators of the crimes, the Croats, as you will see. The Archive has
been later, after 1995, removed from Bosanska Dubica, bordering on
Croatia, to Banja
Luka for safety reasons.
It is worth noting that both Presidents of Serb Republic, Mrs. Biljana
Plavsic and Mr. Dodik, did not allow transfer of this documentation to
Belgrade Museum of Genocide, to keep it where it belonged to. Even the
local civil authorities in Banja Luka resisted the transfer. I have
tried a couple times to talk to them but have been turned down on this
issue.
One incident of a year ago will reveal how perfidious Mr. Dodik was in
hiding his ugly deal.
Since Dr. Bulajic insisted with Mr. Dodik on at least making copies of
the Archive and keeping them in Belgarde Museum, as a reasonable
concession to his request for the transfer of the documentation, in
November 2000 Mr. Dodik promised Dr. Bulajic
to provide $25,000.00 to buy fast computers and other equipment needed
to MAKE COPIES
OF THIS DOCUMENTATION, after it had long gone!!
Maybe is a sheer coincidence, but Mr. Dodik and President of Yugoslavia,
Mr. Voja
Kostunica met in Trebinje, Herzegovina, on October 20, attending the
burial of remains
of the Serbian poet and diplomat, Jovan Ducic, just one week before the
above deal was
cut!
Now, we have come to the essence of the "deal" made on October 27, 2000.
A day earlier the Croatian Ambassador to the US signed an agreement with
the US officials at State
Department on transferring the JASENOVAC ARCHIVE MATERIAL, which
deceitfully
was snatched by Mr. Saltsman, to the Croatian government, as the
Croatian "cultural and
historic property".
One paragraph, pulled off this despicable deal between the Memorial
representative
and the US stooge, former President Dodik of Serb Republic, states:
"..The (US Holocaust Memorial) Museum has the authority to care for the
items( of Archive)
in any manner it determines to be appropriate, in keeping with its LEGAL
and ETHICAL
obligations, and with its MISSION of HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE."
Do we need any comments on the above stated "mission of Holocaust
remembrance", a perversion of a "mission" that deprived the victims of
the Croatian Ustashi of the historic, court exhibits of the heinous
crimes the Croats perpetraded from 1941 to
1945 in the Jasenovac death camp on 750,000 Serbs only, besides Gypsy,
Jew and
other victims.
Respectfully,
Tika Jankovic
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Serbian News Network - SNN
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.antic.org/
