PRESERVING MEMORY OF JASENOVAC KEY TO PREVENTING DISTORTION OF HISTORY

BELGRADE, APRIL 17 /SRNA/ – Jasenovac was the site of the greatest suffering and genocide against Serbs, Jews and Roma, and remembrance of this death camp is the strongest safeguard against the crime being relativized, diminished, or repeated, it was stated at a gathering titled "The Truth About Jasenovac in the NDH /1941–1945/: Historical Perspectives, Memory, and Documentation" in Belgrade.

Dušan Pavlović, director of the Republika Srpska Center for Socio-Political Research, said that Serbian and Jewish remembrance of Jasenovac share the same foundation, emphasizing that both peoples were great victims, but also victors and heroes. “We are not a people prone to self-victimization, we suffered, we fought and we prevailed,” Pavlović said. He noted that Serbs are reclaiming their freedom and spreading the truth every day, thanks to the leadership of Republika Srpska and the policies of Milorad Dodik. “We have reached a point where we can say that we are victims of genocide, and our children now learn about it from their textbooks,” Pavlović said. He warned that a people who do not have the right and freedom to name what happened to them risk disappearing. “In Republika Srpska, there is not a single family that did not lose someone in the genocide. It is remarkable that the family narrative proved stronger than imposed narratives. All official acts of Republika Srpska emphasize that it was founded as a 'no' to a new genocide,” Pavlović said. Bojan Arbutina, director of the Museum of Genocide Victims in Belgrade, said that 77 members of his own family were killed in the NDH, with only his grandfather and great-grandmother surviving. He added that the suffering of Serbs in the Kordun region, from which his family originates, continued during the wars of the 1990s. Arbutina claimed that Croats today glorify the NDH and that last summer half a million people gathered to celebrate Ustasha leader Ante Pavelić. “However, thanks to Serbia and Republika Srpska, we will remain an insurmountable barrier to historical revisionism,” Arbutina stressed. Roma representative Ljuan Koka said that the history of his people is extremely difficult, noting that they have endured slavery, the Inquisition and genocide over centuries. He pointed out that half a million Roma were killed in Europe during World War II and stressed that their descendants will never accept any attempt to diminish their suffering. Theologian Nebojša Lazić emphasized that "we will continue to speak about Jasenovac, because if we did not, the stones of Jasenovac would speak". Among those addressing the gathering were SNSD President Milorad Dodik, Rabbi of the Jewish Community in Serbia Isak Asiel, President of the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists Robert Garson, and Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun. Among the distinguished attendees at the event, held at the Federation of Jewish Communities in Belgrade, was Ana Trišić Babić. The gathering was organized ahead of the commemoration of the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Genocide in the NDH, to be held in Donja Gradina on Sunday, April 19.