Croatia commemorates Nazi concentration camp victims

JASENOVAC, Croatia, April 22 (Xinhua) -- Top Croatian officials attended the official commemoration for the victims of Jasenovac concentration camp on Sunday in north Croatia.

"We came once more to pay respects to the victims of the Ustashe camp Jasenovac and their families and to condemn in the strongest terms the criminal regime in which Jews, Serbs, Roma and anti-fascists were killed," Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said.

Croatia has not yet banned the slogan "For home, ready!" used by Ustashe regime. For this reason, for the third year, representatives of Jewish and Serbian organizations and anti-fascist associations boycott the official commemoration in Jasenovac under the patronage of the Croatian Parliament.

"I hope this is the last year with three separate commemorations in Jasenovac," said Speaker of Parliament Gordan Jandrokovic.

There were no official speeches of the Croatian politicians at the commemoration, and no one from the Serbian government came to Jasenovac because of Croatia's ban on the arrival of Serbian Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin.

Jasenovac concentration camp was founded by Ustashe, the Croatian ultra-nationalist movement during the Second World War, in the Independent State of Croatia, which was created under the protection of fascist Italy and the Hitler regime.

On April 22, 1945, some 600 inmates attempted to escape from the camp, and around 90 survived. According to data of the memorial center of Jasenovac, between 1941 and 1945, 83,000 people, mostly Jews, Serbs and Roma, were killed in the camp. Enditem