Nazi-hunter blasts Croatia's 'Auschwitz' museum

*Wed Nov 29, 7:31 PM ET*
* [image: 
AFP]<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/afp/brand/SIG=ofqlv2/*http://www.afp.com>
*

*[image: Croatian leaders take a tour of the newly opened education center
at the former concentration camp at Jasenovac. The head of the Holocaust
memorial group the Simon Wiesenthal Center criticized Croatia over a newly
opened museum at the site of a fascist World War II concentration
camp.(AFP/File)]
<http://news.yahoo.com/photo/061130/photos_lf_afp/0e99e894bc39d1000ba14257afce430b>
*
* AFP/File 
Photo:<http://news.yahoo.com/photo/061130/photos_lf_afp/0e99e894bc39d1000ba14257afce430b>Croatian
leaders take a tour of the newly opened education center at the
former concentration camp at Jasenovac. The head of the Holocaust memorial
group the Simon Wiesenthal Center criticized Croatia over a newly opened
museum at the site of a fascist World War II concentration camp.(AFP/File)
*

**

The head of the Holocaust memorial group the Simon Wiesenthal Center
criticized Croatia over a newly opened museum at the site of a fascist World
War II concentration camp, in written comments.

"I saw an exhibition which was a big disappointment," Efraim Zuroff wrote in
an article published in the weekly Globus.

"To my disbelief, there was not a single photograph of the commanders of
Jasenovac," he said of the camp at which his organization estimates some
600,000 mostly Serbs and Jews were killed during World War II.

Zuroff said that any young visitors to the museum would "leave probably more
confused then they were before" they visited an education center on
atrocities committed at the camp by the "Ustasha" regime.

"In a museum dealing with nameless Ustasha (members), no individual can be
made responsible," said Zuroff.

"More importantly, it lacks materials or explanations about the development
of the Ustasha ideology before the war -- hatred against Serbs and
anti-Semitism, which helped the spread of genocidal policy," he added.

The education center was opened Monday along with a new permanent layout of
the Jasenovac museum in an official ceremony attended by Croatian President
Stipe Mesic and Prime Minister Ivo Sanader.

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

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 by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and 700,000 by
Belgrade.

During his visit Zuroff met with Croatian state attorney Mladen Bajic and
urged him to intensify efforts to prosecute Ustasha police chief Milovoj
Asner, now living in Klagenfurt, Austria.

Vienna rejected a request by Croatia in September 2005 for Asner's
extradition on the basis that he has an Austrian passport, but said it would
consider trying the man itself.

Asner, 93, is accused by the Wiesenthal Centre of having participated in the
persecution and deportation of hundreds of people killed in Ustasha
concentration camps.

"Time is rapidly running out in this case and therefore a concentrated
effort must be made by all involved parties to finally convince the Austrian
authorities that there is absolutely no basis for their refusal to turn over
the former police chief," Zuroff said in a statement.

Zuroff also pressed Croatia to investigate former Ustasha commander Ivo
Rojnica who is living in Argentina.



http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061130/lf_afp/croatiaholocaustjews_061130003116

GIF image

Attachment: capt.sge.qqg64.301106003111.photo00.photo.default-512x372.jpg?x=180&y=130&sig=PRODeKRw3VEqUjwcSlQEnA--
Description: Binary data

Reply via email to