From: simic@pollux.ccsf.caltech.edu (Petar Simic)
Subject: Re: Irony continues in our history
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 11:13:31 GMT

 	Josi Loncaric writes:
>>>
	Petar Simic writes:
>    As far as "selective memories" and "justifications", let me remaind you
> that we are discussing the historical facts, and it is not my intention to
> justify anything. Serbia proper was occupied by the Germans. Regular
> Serbian army was in the woods traying to organize anti-fascistic
> resistance. Irregulars (partisans) were in the hills doing the same.
> The overall feeling of the population was violently anti-fascist. The
> overal feeling toward Jews was traditionally friendly. The only organized
> killing machine were German divisions who executed several thousands of
> Jews, and deported to Croatia and Germany the rest. There, they were
> eventually executed by fascists. In Serbia, Germans also have executed
> many thousands of Serbian civilians in retributions for frequent guerilla
> attacks on them. Hundred civilians for one Germans solder was the Hitlers
> rule *for Serbia*. If there were cases of Serbs from local administration
> doing wrong to Jews, such cases were as rare as the circumstances would
> allow, and can not be  * by any strech of imagination *  (or available 
> historic documentation) compared to the share Germans have for attrocities
> against Jews in Serbia, or with what Croatian fascists did to Jews and Serbs
> in their Croatian independent state.

  One correction: Belgrade gas chambers were operated by local Serbs...

  I have one thing to say: Serbian Jews experienced the same fate as 
  Croatian Jews.  In Serbia, there was the Belgrade gas chamber,
  in Croatia, Jasenovac.  Both were operated by the local authorities,..

	...Josip
<<<

	This, of course is, LIE. I challenge you to provide a quote from
 the credible historic document which would point the blaim for operating
 a gas van, which was brouth in spring of '42 from Berlin to Serbia and used
 for two months, to anybody but Germans. Here is some quote from Encyclopedia
 of the Holocaust, Israel Gutman: "...the German authorities in Serbia realized
 that they would not be able to deport the Jews as quickly as they had
 tought, and they asked Berlin to provide another solution. In late February
 a gas van arrived in Belgrade, sent from Berlin... This gas van was used
 from March to May of 1942 to kill all the Jews imprisoned in Sajmiste..."

	This is not to say that quisling puppet government under Milan Nedic
 did nothing wrong. His gendarmerie had to be involved to some degree in
 assisting the Germans in rounding up the Jews. This is clear. Yet, if we
 are discussing in good-faight here, we should not mix the leading order
 history with the small, Nth order effects.

	This is the last I have to say on this question.

 	Here is the relevant excerpt from, "Encyclopedia of the Holocaust", 
 Israel Gutman.

 	First about who was in charge in German occupied Serbia:
	--------------------------------------------------------

	" In the wake of the Serbian uprising of July 1941, the German army
 commander, Gen. Herman Bohme, was given emergency powers, and up to the end
 of that year he was the highest authority in Serbia...
	The military administration consisted of an operational military wing
 and an ...civilian wing (Verwaltungsstab). The civilian wing, which was
 also in charge of Jewish affairs, was headed by SS-Grupenfuhrer Harold
 Turner, who had at his disposal Einsatzruppe Serbien. Its commanders were
 SS-Standartenfuhrer Wilhelm Fuchs and SS-Gruppfuhrer August Meiszner...
 The security police had its main office in Belgrade and maintained branches
 in cities and towns all over Serbia. Section IV (the Gestapo) had a subsection
 for Jewish affairs (SS, Fritz Stracke), which dealt with implementing of
 German policy toward the Jews...

	...Responsible for these deeds (killing of Jews) were the leading
 officials of the German administration of Serbia, Harold Turner, Wilhelm
 Fuchs, Emanuel Schafer and August Meissner; the army commanders in the
 Balkans, Generals Wilhelm List and Walter Kuntze; and the commander of
 the army in Serbia, Gen. Franz Bohme." (pp. 1719)

	--------------------- end of citation -------------------


	Here is, however, the relevant paragraph about who was in charge
 for kilings in Croatia (Enc. Holocaust, pp. 323, 326): 
  
	"Three government departments were involved in Jewsih affairs. The 
 Ministry of the Interior, with Andrija Artukovic (a Croat) as minister,
 dealt with anti-Jewish legislation; the security police (Croatian Ustase)
 under E. D. Kvaternik, arrested, imprisoned and murdered Jews, and run
 concentration camps; and the Ministry of Finance, under Vladimir Kosak
 (Croat), was charged with the depredations of Jewish property...

 	Croatian Jews, for the most part, were murdered by fellow Croatians..."


	-------------------- end of citation ----------------------------

>>>	
>       On the other hand, Croats runed their own independent Croatian state 
> (NDH), they had their own and rather numerous fascistic army (ustashas)
> members of which fought shoulder-to-shoulder with Germans in as remote
> places as Russia, they had their publicly proclaimed policy of exterminating
> Serbs and Jews, and they had highly efficient state runed death-camps in 
> which systematic extermination of civilians (just because they are Serbs or 
> Jews) took place. Not by Germans... 

Yes, Croatian fascists had concentration camps.  Their victims were, in
order of importance to Ustashe: (1) Serbs, (2) Croatian Communists, 
(3) Jews and (4) others.  ...So, Ustashe collected the "undesirable"
Serbs, Croatian opposition, Jews and Gypsies; and exploited them to 
death.
	Josip 

<<<

	Hmmm. I see. The phrase "undesirable Serbs" is bit missleading isn't it?
 As if "ethnicity" was not all what mattered.

	Petar.

	-------------------------------------------------------------------
PS	I will be away for some time and most probably will not be able to
 	continue this discussion.

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