From: josip@src.umd.edu (Josip Loncaric)
Subject: Re: Irony continues in our history
Followup-To: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Organization: Systems Research Center, Maryversity of Uniland, College Park
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1992 18:41:24 GMT

In article <1992Aug15.054440.12063@cco.caltech.edu> simic@pollux.ccsf.caltech.edu (Petar Simic) writes:
>	Josip Loncaric writes:
>
>>>>
>
>In article <4eWn0f600WB6AQlVQE@andrew.cmu.edu> Radu Eugen Edelstein <re0x+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
>>Josip Loncarcic writes:
>>
>>My claims are based on the few useful studies which were done on this
>>matter, where both Serbian and Croatian historians compared a wide
>>variety of available information, such as name lists, demographic
>>studies, official government documents, etc., and came up with
>>essentially the same conclusions.  I've reported those conclusions
>>from a reference by a Serbian historian, but I could quote Croatian
>>sources which are essentially similar.
>>
>>
>>
>>I say:
>>With all due respect to the knowledge of the historians you go on to
>>quote, generally the professionalism of historians from Eastern
>>Europe is dobted.  Their works are regarded with suspicion, and for
>>good reason, many were recognized as being simply part of the propaganda
>>of the governments of those totalitarian Communist/Socialist states.
>>Rad
>
> Yes and no.  Yes, some Eastern European historians are simply 
> mouthpieces of their governments; and no, not all of them are
> so unprofessional.  
>
> To say that some historians simply rehash official propaganda lines
> does NOT mean that East European history is completely plastic... 
>
>	Josip
>
><<<
>
>	You quoted one Serbian historian (Kocovic) who is not the main-stream
> by any means, and who is offten used by Croatian revisionists because he
> is Serb, yet, he wrote a book in which he estimates number of Serbs and
> Jews exterminated to be considerably lower than most of the other Yugoslav
> or foreign Holocaust schoolars - so, he must be right. His book, however,
> is realy an exception rather than the main-stream, and this should be made
> clear, otherwise, it looks as an attempt to manipulate the uninformed.  

Besides Kocovic, there is the 1964 official Yugoslav government study 
surveying victims of WWII to support its claim for war reparations.  The
study failed to substantiate the estimates claimed by Yugoslavia, and
was thus suppressed until recently.

Kocovic, a Serbian emigree scholar not subject to the dictates of the
Serbian government, has concluded that the possible variation in the
number of Serbian victims (from all causes) in WWII ranges between 
452,000 and 528,000.  By comparison, the 1964 Yugoslav Government
Study of World War II Victims concluded that the victims included
346,740 Serbs.  This includes all losses but those fallen fighting
on the side of Serbian quisling formations.  Had those Serbs been included,
the total would agree closely with the results of Kocovic and Zerjavic.

>	To illustrate this, I would list here just few of the important
> Yugoslavian historians who studied the Holocaust for many years, and who
> got to the same conclusion as the most Western historians (which are,
> generally speaking, less biased). They consider the Kocovic's estimates
> as simply *wrong*: dr. V. Djuretic, dr. Dedijer, dr. Bulatovic, 
> dr. L. Kostic, etc. Each of these people is a serious schoolar, and they
> have used in their studies many independent sources, documents, testimonies,
> statistical and demographic data, etc. over the many years, and each have
> written several books on the Holocaust in Balkans and in particular in the
> independent state of Croatia. I know that dr. Kostic's book, "Holocoust in
> the independent state of Croatis", is available in english, but I do not
> know for the others.
>
>	---------------------
>
>	Petar.

The people you quote are precisely the ones subject to the dictates of
Serbian/Yugoslav government.  To establish the numbers of World War II
victims in Yugoslavia, you have to begin by a serious study of
demographics, victim lists, etc.: you cannot just "eyeball" an estimate.

Claims of numbers of World War II victims in Yugoslavia vastly different
from those I have quoted are simply not supported by published evidence.

Josip


P.S. The "semiofficial" figure of 1,706,000 Yugoslavs lost to all causes
in WWII has never been substantiated.  This estimate has been circulating
since 1945, that is, before the first postwar census or any systematic
attempts to produce a list of victims.  Federal Bureau of Statistics
in Belgrade has, in 1947, been given the task to substantiate this
already accepted figure, rather than to determine what the actual figure
is.  Demographic estimates which can be checked against other sources
of information (such as victim lists), and the above mentioned official
study, all conclude that the total number of victims is about 1,000,000.
Unlike the unsubstantiated figure of 1,706,000 all of these methods
can be checked.