From: stojanov@husc10.harvard.edu (Milan Stojanovic)
Newsgroups: soc.history,soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: Croatian President on WWII victims
Date: 13 Aug 92 00:10:44 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Aug12.201046.14676
Organization: Harvard University Science Center


1. Introduction

This discussion started with Mr. Loncaric's claims about Croatian 
President.

I decided to post relevant parts of Pres. Tudjman's book. 
They are going to show exactly what  kind of methods he is using 
to revise history. I will leave to the readers to  judge whether 
the writings of the Croatian President have something do with the 
Serbian claims that they were endagered in Croatia.

In any case, something about material presented here.  It was posted a
while ago on S.C.Y.  Translated by professional translators from 
Belgrade, it was immediately branded as a pure propaganda, where
through cunning changing of interpunction, the meaning was distorted.
I took a book and went through each line.  Interpunction was OK, 
I added some parts (marked by [] ) for clarity. I will send photocopy
of Serbo-Croatian text upon request to everyone for translation.
Including Mr. Loncaric.
The part relevant to Jewish reders is in the second part of this posting.

2.[ Pres. Tudjman on Jewish Victims in Jasenovac

Taken from book "Wastelands of the Historical Reality"
Part IV, Historical Facts and Non-scientific Theories
I. The Changing of the Historical-Scientific Facts
1. About truthfullness of the sources and testimonies 
about war victims. ]

 Note by MNS:  This is a part of a longer chapter  relevant to 
discussion.  It is important to know that in no other part of
this book does Dr. Tudjman quote any other source, or give
any other description of the events taking part in Jasenovac.
Also, being a Serbian, I have never heard for these document 
Tudjman picks and claims that they represent the situation 
"fairly correctly."  I have been taught that Serbs, Jews and 
Gypsies shared their unfortunate fate in Jasenovac.  I leave to the
reader to judge why is Tudjman doing this.

Translation:
p. 316

 All this indicates the need to investigate in an objective way
all the ``collection'' and ``labor camps'' and Jasenovac above all. The
crimes of the Ustashi as well as those of the Chetniks or any other
actors in other places and at other times,  will not lose the
``enormity'' of the brutalities if they are depicted exactly as they
were.  It is precisely by monstrously multiplying them that an
opposite effect is obtained: on the one hand due to the fact that
they are unconvincing and on the other hand because they foment
even more irrational hatred. The promoters of the Jasenovac myth
have since the very outset to the present day been insisting on the
fact that the Jasenovac camp was organized with the express purpose
of liquidating all the inmates so that there were daily massacres
of hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and Communists.
The truth is that the camp was organized as a ``labor camp'' with
many field and factory units. To the camp individually and mostly
in small groups of tens or one hundred persons, tens of thousands
of unfortunate persons were brought but also released and shipped
to labor camps in Germany. The inmates during their stay in the
camp were worked hard end maltreated under exceptionally difficult
and unhygienic conditions at work and they were also tortured and
killed for the least disobedience especially the aged and the
feeble,  and from time to time on the pretext of reprisals for
killed Ustashi or attempted escape they were brutally killed in
smaller or bigger groups (in tens end even hundreds). In this way
in the Jasenovac camp probably 3--4 tens of thousands of inmates
were killed in this way. Most of these were Gypsies, Jews and Serbs
and even Croats.  I am convinced that this figure can also be
exactly established -- except perhaps for the Gypsies -- through
further detailed investigation.

In estimating the situation in the camp in view of its purpose and
the  crimes  committed,  we  should  bear  in  mind  its  internal
management which was based on the inmates ( ``themselves'') running the
camp. In this connection I have long ago arrived at a conclusion
that in exaggerating Ustashi crimes some individuals who had some
special,  hidden reasons,  became particularly prominent in this
effort. In this context the report made by Vojislav Prnjatovic, an
inmate from Sarajevo, on March 11, 1942, after being released from
Jasenovac, to the Commissariat for Refugees of Nedic's Government
in Belgrade, contained  fairly true picture of Jasenovac. The
inmates were used for work on several large farming estates between
Jasenovac and Stara Gradiska whose owners were Serbs and who were
``partly voluntarily and partly forcibly deported''. And as in this
area there was a ``factory owned by the firm of Bacic and Co., which
was confiscated by the Croat state, because Bacic emigrated to
Serbia'', it was the intention of the Ustashi ``to make of Jasenovac
not only a collection camp but also an industrial camp seeing that
on that land good factory workshops had already been built for the
production  of  iron  mongery,  tin-plates,  upholstery,  riffles,
automobile parts, carpentry, electrical appliances, bricks, a steam
saw-mill, an electric power house, which supplied electricity for
the town of Jasenovac itself''. The inmates were placed into three
groups: the free men, the partially free and the simple inmates.
And  next  to  the  camp  command  there  was  also an  inmates 
management. The Ustashi management consists of a supervisory body
while the ``self-management of the inmates meant that the inmates
themselves ran their lives and work in the camp according to the
orders and intentions of the Ustashi. In this way the inmates ran
their own food supplies, accommodation, order and cleanliness in
the camp''. The inmates who were free could not only move freely
about the camp and in the town of Jasenovac, but they could also go
without  guards on official  trips to procure goods  throughout
Croatia. The partially free inmates could move about in the camp and
the town of Jasenovac ``where they usually went in order to procure
goods or take over merchandize''. ``The ordinary inmates could move
about in the camp in daytime on condition that they did not
approach the wired fence from nearer than 5 meters''. Heading this
hierarchy of inmates was the camp foreman who had a deputy, head of
the food department and  clerk's office. He was followed by the
barracks commanders and heads of the working groups. All these
people in the inmates management were free  and all these posts were
held by Jews and only three out of twenty five barracks commanders
and working groups were Serbs. Every individual barrack had its
superintendent  and  four  orderlies. ``All  the  inmates  ...were
employed mainly according to their profession in civilian life and
it was easiest for tradesmen end skilled worker because they were
sent to work in the workshops'', and for field work only if the
professional jobs were filled.

``The free inmates do not live inside the camp but in the village of
Jasenovac in private homes and they could also bring their families
with them. Therefore, they could live freely with their families in
Jasenovac. Unfortunately this refers only  to Jew''.

``Inmates in groups have special group food which is good and tasty
and they receive one whole loaf of bread of 900 grams per day''.
This refers to those in the work groups. While ``ordinary inmates
receive simple food'' which is just as the food for the sick ``below
all standards''. Poor food, heavy work and unsanitary conditions
were the reasons why the inmates lost weight and fell ill, ``which
led them directly into death because once ill and exhausted they
are usually liquidated''. It was only in January 1942 before the
arrival of the International Commission that a hospital was put up.
But the inmates went there only in dire need because the Ustashi
would break into the hospital every two to three weeks and drag
the sick out and liquidate them in front of the hospital building
or at a cemetery. All the inmates except the sick in the hospital
had to work and if they violated the discipline the Ustashi were
``entitled without any responsibility to kill the inmate'' and ``not
a day went by without the Ustashi making use of this right''. In
addition to individual killings, there were also ``mass killing''s
when new transports arrived or when the numerical status in the
camp ``exceeded one thousand'' and then the Ustashi would order ``a
selection to be made among the inmates for liquidation''. As to the
figures, Prnjatovic states that from December 1941 to January 1942
about ``3--4 thousand newly arrived inmates were killed''. In the camp
there were 5--8 times more Jews than Serbs. As they arrived earlier
and ``succeeded  in the  inmates  hierarchy  to grab  the  better
positions'' in order to retain their privileges ``they constantly
intrigued  against  the  Serbs''  and ``as  the  Ustashi  had  more
confidence in the Jews'', the Serbs ``in addition to suffering from
the Ustashi, suffered also from the Jews'': ``a Jew remains a Jew in
the Jasenovac camp as well. In the camp they retained their defects
which  became  more  visible  now.   Selfishness,   craftiness,
unreliability, miserliness, underhandedness and secrecy are their
main characteristics''. *492*
[Reference 492: Tudjman admits that there is some confusion about
dates on the original documents, but that does not stop him to 
conclude that this is "fairly true picture."  Even for the uneducated
historicaly reader, something should be fishy with the document 
about Jews produced in 1942.  Not to Tudjman.Original document could
be found in book by A. Miletic, together with many other doumetnts]

			Prnjatovic's Judgment is exaggerated and we
might say even [In original:mogli bismo reci] anti-Semitic. But similar 
statements were made by other witnesses. *493*

[Reference 493: the prisoner Branko Popovic, states in 14.4.1942, after
going out from Jasenovac [MNS: going out??] that Jews, called "Bulgarian"
has beaten prisoners with one ustasha, a then killed prisoner Ivic 
with knife. Compare A. Miletic, n.dj., III, 128 ]

	Some of the Jewish camp officials were armed and
even took part in the killings. Moreover, they held in their hands
a good many of the ``selection jobs'' that is the selection of
inmates for liquidation and partly also for their execution [ MNS:
execution of the liquidation] .

End of the first part.

For the briefness I decided to continue in the next posting.

Regards,
Organization: Masters student, Information Networking Institute, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA