http://www.jasenovac.org/JRI_files/newsandevents/28june2001.htm PRESS
ANNOUNCEMENT For
Immediate Release
Contact: Dr. Bernard Klein, Commission
Chairman Telephone:
718-368-5417 Fax: 718-368-4654 KINGSBOROUGH
COMMUNITY COLLEGE HOSTS FIRST MEETING OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION ON THE
JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMPS, JUNE 27 AND 28, 2001 The first meeting of the International
Commission on Jasenovac, a historical commission established by scholars from
seven nations, was held at Kingsborough Community College of the City University
of New York in Brooklyn, New York on June 27 and 28 2001. This historic event was hosted by
Kingsborough's President Byron McClenney and by its History Department. Dr.
Bernard Klein, Chairman of Kingsborough's Department of History, Philosophy, and
Political Science and a founder of the Commission, has been asked by members of
the Commission to serve as its Chairman.
These initial deliberations are of a preliminary nature to chart the
further course of the Commission and to set an agenda for future multinational
efforts by the Commission to resolve and permanently establish the status of
Jasenovac among Holocaust scholars and institutions as a genocide camp - one of
the last and thorniest unresolved issues of the Holocaust. Michael Berenbaum, the former Research
Director of the US Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, former President of the
Shoah Foundation, and a world leading Holocaust scholar was among the
Commission's members participating in this week's proceedings at Kingsborough.
Also participating were scholars from
The need to develop an international
approach to the many unresolved issues surrounding Jasenovac was the compelling
reason for the creation of the Commission at the Second International Conference
on Jasenovac held in Banja Luka in Bosnia in May 2000. Scholars at that conference decided to
establish the Commission following discussions on how to further international
agreement and cooperation for establishing and recognizing the status of and
facts about the crimes committed in World War II fascist
The convening of the International
Commission on Jasenovac at Kingsborough this week represents another major
historic milestone in the efforts to resolve the long-standing grievances of
Jasenovac Survivors and to achieve finally a measure of justice for the victims
of these camps. The Jasenovac Camps were a complex of five
major and three smaller "special" camps spread out over 240 square kilometers
(150 square miles) in south-central
Following the Nazi invasion
and dismemberment of
Along with hundreds of thousands of Serbs,
some 25,000 Jews and at least 30,000 Romas were murdered in these camps. Roma historians argue that the numbers
of Romas killed are vastly underestimated. The categories of victims at
Jasenovac also include thousands of Slovenian, Croatian and Muslim anti-fascists
as well as members of many other nationalities. Also the special religious
dimension of the Holocaust in
But despite the scale of the crimes
committed there, most of the world has never heard of Jasenovac. Perhaps more
disturbing still, Jasenovac has not achieved full recognition as a World War II
Concentration Camp by some of the leading Holocaust institutions. This withholding of recognition has
cruelly impacted the Yugoslav Survivor community, both Survivors and victims'
descendants. Not only are they
deprived of eligibility for compensation from reparations agreements such as the
Claims Conference in
The Commission meetings explored a number
of crucial issues and proposals for dealing with them. Among these were the obtaining of
international status and recognition of Jasenovac; the initiation of
investigations of the mass grave sites of Jasenovac at Donja Gradina using
remote sensing technology; pursuing reparations for Jasenovac victims from all
nationalities and further litigation seeking compensation; renewing war crimes
indictments against living Jasenovac camp commanders and officials such as Dinko
and Nada Sakic; securing international protection for the entire Jasenovac
memorial site under UNESCO "World Heritage" statutes; and the status and fate of
archives and artifacts from Jasenovac, including the controversial transfer of a large archive from Bosnia
last November. The Commission recognized that the fate of these important
archives and artifacts is of great concern. The commission made arrangements to
pursue these matters through governmental channels and agreed to meet again
following the completion of these inquires. The Jasenovac camps were not only the
largest system of genocide camps in fascist
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