http://news.serbianunity.net/bydate/2005/December_21/24.html?w=p
Serbian Unity Congress
Croatia removes anti-fascist monument from Jasenovac death camp
BBC Monitoring
December 21, 2005
Text of report by Croatian radio on 19 December
[Announcer] Over the past 15 years more than 3,000 anti-fascist
monuments in Croatia were destroyed or removed from public areas
either in war hostilities or deliberately. A decision by the
management of the Jasenovac Memorial Complex [Croatian Ustasha WW2
death camp] to remove from the new permanent exhibition which is being
put together a monumental work of art by Dusan Dzamonja - Reljef
jasenovackim zrvama [Relief for the Victims of Jasenovac] - has caused
a stir in the public. More on why the relief has been removed by
Ruzica Simunovic:
[Reporter] Painstaking work to return historical material has been in
progress from the liberation of the Jasenovac area in 1995 [which was
part of the self-declared Serb state in Croatia between 1991 and
1995]. The Cvijet [Flower] monumental structure designed by Bogdan
Bogdanovic has been restored. Over the past six years experts have
intensively been working on new ideas for the memorial complex which
also includes putting together a new permanent exhibition in the
memorial museum, which has become an apple of discord recently. An
approved concept drawn up by architect Helen Paver-Njiric and
custodian Leonida Kovac aims to use the names of victims and video
recordings of the survivors to tell us the story in the first person
singular, Leonida Kovac says. The Relief for the Victims of Jasenovac
has become redundant:
[Kovac] That sculpture does not at all fit in, it is monumental, it is
a monument. And here, in this exhibition, we were trying to avoid
exactly this kind of monumental approach.
[Reporter] Dusan Dzamonja says:
[Dzamonja] The relief is not part of the exhibition; it is part of the
museum and should not be touched.
[Reporter] Head of the memorial complex Natasa Jovicic gave her
consent for the relief to be removed:
[Jovicic] In the Jasenovac Memorial Complex there is only one monument
which is the Cvijet monument by Bogdan Bogdanovic. The relief by
academic sculptor Dusan Dzamonja is currently in temporary storage
until an adequate exhibition place is found for his work of art.
[Reporter] There has been speculation that the relief was stored in
the Zagreb Sculpture Gallery of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and
Arts. The sculptor denies this, saying that the gallery has confirmed
that there was no room there for the monumental work of art that
weighs three tonnes. The president of the Croatian Museum Council
which approved the new concept for the permanent exhibition, Vinko
Ivic, says:
[Ivic] We shall not allow any misunderstandings; if we have reached a
good expert agreement, this should not now cause a conflict which is
not worthy of the attention it is getting.
[Reporter] However, there have been reactions. The president of the
Jewish Municipality of Zagreb, Ognjen Kraus, says that the explanation
for the removal of Dzamonja's relief reminds him of how the Ustashe
[Croatian WWII pro-Nazi state] authorities explained the destruction
of the Zagreb synagogue by saying that it did not fit the urban
planning.
[Kraus] The Jewish Municipality of Zagreb demands that the relief be
placed where it has been for the past 37 years.
[Reporter] Dusan Dzamonja, who refers to the relief as his Guernica, says:
[Dzamonja] This is destruction of an anti-fascist monument. These are
no longer bombs, but these are other methods.
[Report] As we can read on the Internet pages of the Jasenovac
Memorial Complex, the objective is to use a modern approach to include
this public institution in international trends of researching and
organizing exhibitions about the Holocaust, genocide and the suffering
of anti-fascists. Dusan Dzamonja is not giving up and has even hinted
at addressing UNESCO and filing a lawsuit against the state.
Source: Croatian Radio, Zagreb, in Croatian 1400 gmt 19 Dec 05
Serbian News Network - SNN
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