From: dz@cs.brown.edu (Daniel Zalik)
Subject: Serbia and the Holocaust
Organization: Brown Computer Science Dept.
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 04:46:11 GMT


I am posting the following which I received from a Croatian freind
of mine. I think that a discussion on this part of history is
appropriate in light of what has been going on the former
Yugoslavian Republics. I make no claims as to the veracity of
the following historical diatribe nor do I assert the extent of
Serbian or Croatian complicity in the Holocaust.

--Daniel Zalik






From ST403315@brownvm.brown.edu Thu Apr 16 00:32:21 1992
Resent-Message-Id: <9204160432.AA20541@cs.brown.edu>
Resent-Date:  Thu, 16 Apr 92 00:31:51 EDT
Resent-From: Antonio Zelic <ST403315@brownvm.brown.edu>
Resent-To: Daniel Zalik <DZ@CS.BROWN.edu>
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992   10:11 -0800 (PST)
From: "H. Galic" <GALIC%SLACVM.BITNET%bitnet.cc.cmu.edu@brownvm.brown.edu>
Subject: The Jewish Press, Feb 21, 1992
To: +dist+~na0i/hrvatska@andrew.cmu.edu
Content-Length: 4187



----------------------------Original message----------------------------
(Courtesy of I.Z.)


THE JEWISH PRESS

Friday, February 21, 1992


                    The Tragedies of Croatia

     In recent months Croatia has suffered a massive attack that
has cost it thousands of lives and billions of dollars in economic
harm.  Serbia claims that it began this destruction because
Croatia's independence revived Serbian memories of a Croatia state
allied with Nazi Germany.  By manipulating history, Serbia's
supporters have undertaken a campaign to portray the victim of this
destruction as the villain.  They remind everyone that anti-Jewish
pogroms occurred in Croatia during World War II but never mention
the fate of the Jews in Serbia.  See, for example, "A Reawakening
of Fascism" by Klara Mandich, THE JEWISH PRESS, January 31, 1992.
     At the start of World War II, the Jewish community in Serbia
numbered about 30,000.  Twenty-six thousand were killed by the end
of the war.  Many perished on the outskirts of Belgrade, Serbia's
capital, in trucks fitted for murder by gas.  As early as August
1942, the Nazis described Serbia as the only country in which the
"problem of the Jews and Gypsies had been solved".  The blame for
these crimes rests primarily with the Nazis.  But Serbia's puppet
government headed by General Milan Nedi~, played a key role in the
Nazi occupation.
     In April 1941, Serbia came under Nazi administration.  The
following month, Belgrade's municipal president barred Jews from
employment in various professions and public service.  Jews were
required to wear yellow arm bands in public and thousands were
drafted into forced labor.  Belgrade newspapers described Jews as
ancient enemies of Serbia, adding that Jews had been repeatedly
expelled from Serbia in the past.
     The pro-Nazi Nedi~ government was installed in Serbia in
August 1941.  By the end of the following month, nearly all Jewish
men in Serbia had been imprisoned in concentration camps near
Belgrade.  By October 1941, 2000 had been shot.  In February 1942,
hundreds of Jewish women and children were gassed to death in
trucks near Jajinci.
     Nedi~'s Serbian police captured Jews attempting to escape and
received a cash bounty for each person captured.  In August 1942,
Nedi~'s council of ministers passed a regulation confiscating all
Jewish property in Serbia.  By October 1942, Belgrade's Jewish
Bureau of the Gestapo closed because there were no longer any Jews
living in its district.
     Serbia's leader today, Slobodan Milo~evi~, is a vivid reminder
of Serbia's Nazi past.  His troops hold thousands of Croat
civilians in concentration camps in Sta~i~evo, Begejci and
elsewhere.  Prisoners in the camps are severely beaten and selected
for systematic killing.  Western reporters have seen Serbian troops
summarily executing Croat civilians and looting Croatian shops.
Croats in some areas occupied by Serbian troops are forced to wear
white arm bands.
     Milo~evi~ has also turned the province of Kosovo into a police
state in which two million people have been deprived of all legal
and political rights.  Like Hitler, Milo~evi~ disguises these
territorial conquests as attempts to protect minorities.  Nazi
takeovers of several of Germany's neighbors were premised on the
purported goal of protecting German minorities.
     Prior to World War II, Europe's leaders bent over backwards to
avoid conflict with Hitler, permitting him to expand Germany's
borders and to become a more formidable menace.  Last year, after
the Serb-Yugoslav Army attacked Slovenia and tried to take over
vital regions of Croatia, the European Community and the U.S. took
the position that recognition of Slovenia and Croatia might anger
Milo~evi~ into escalating the war.
     Unfortunately, the long delay in recognizing Croatia and
Slovenia only encouraged Milo~evi~'s troops to kill thousands of
people whose only crime was to vote for democracy and independence.
The results are a horrible reminder of World War II, with many
Croats today suffering the fate of Jews in Serbia before them.

                              Zlatko Batistich
                              Fort Lee, N.J.


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