Agence France Presse December 21, 2005 Wednesday
Croatia, Israel to turn WWII concentration camp into education centre
DATELINE: ZAGREB Dec 21
Croatia and Israel are to jointly turn the site of the Jasenovac World War II
concentration camp in the former Yugoslav republic into an education centre, it
was announced Wednesday.
Known as Croatia's Auschwitz, where hundreds of thousands of people were
killed under the country's pro-Nazi regime, Jasenovac was chosen for the project
by the International School for Holocaust Studies, Yad Vashem, said Jasenovac
director Natasa Jovicic.
"The letter of intent from Yad Vashem is one of the most important offers for
cooperation regarding education on the Holocaust at the European level," Jovicic
told Croatia's state-run HINA news agency.
The cooperation would also include help in writing education programs and an
exchange of experts, she said.
Authorities would also try to complete renovation work at the site, Jovicic
added, referring to efforts to rebuild Jasenovac's memorial complex and museum
after it was damaged during the 1991-1995 Serbo-Croatian war.
Yad Vashem representatives are to visit Jasenovac, some 100 kilometers (60
miles) southeast of Zagreb, in January for talks on the project.
The number of victims at Jasenovac -- Serbs, Jews, Roma and Croatians who
resisted the fascist regime -- is still disputed, with estimates varying from
tens of thousands to 700,000.
Croatian President Stipe Mesic said earlier this month that pupils should be
taught the truth about the country's world war Ustasha regime.
His appeal came after some 200 high school students in the coastal town of
Zadar protested the arrest of top Croatian war crimes suspect Ante Gotovina
using Ustasha insignia.
In the 1990s, Croatia's late nationalist president Franjo Tudjman played down
atrocities committed by the Ustasha regime by failing to clearly condemn it.
Former general Gotovina was arrested in Spain earlier this month after being
on the run since mid-2001, when the UN tribunal charged him with war crimes
against ethnic Serbs at the end of the 1991-1995 war.
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