Free Republic

Photo: "Antifascisticki vijesnik" Zagreb police needed almost 24 hours to determine whether on the Zagreb main Ban Jelacic Square on Monday, on the occasion of marking the day of establishment of NDH [Independent State of Croatia April 10, 1941], rallied a group of pro-fascist youth, who carried banners with Ustasha symbols and words “Kill the Serb” and nationalist flag with first white box on the chessboard (NDH flag). Although photographs published by portal “Antifascisticki vijesnik” clearly show everything, police in Zagreb claims they missed the group of people who rallied at the central city square, as well as banners...

Croatia's Jews will boycott the country's official ceremony honoring the victims of the pro-Nazi regime of World War II, accusing the current government of doing little against what they say is a resurgence of neo-Naziism. The main Jewish agency says it will hold its own commemoration "in line with the Jewish tradition." ... Every April, Croatia honors the victims of the Jasenovac death camp, operated by the pro-Nazi Ustasha regime of World War II. The camp is known as Croatia's own Auschwitz. Historians still debate the exact number of people murdered in the camp, with some saying the total is...

<p>Imagine for a minute that memorial masses were held in two major cities in Germany on the anniversary of the death of Adolf Hitler. Needless to say, such a ceremony would arouse fury, indignation, and widespread protests not only in Germany, but throughout the entire world. Last week, the local equivalent of such an event took place in Croatia, but instead of anger and demonstrations, not a single word of protest was heard from anywhere in the country.</p>

Catholic Church, looking for a bulwark against communism, supported what became genocidal regime of Nazi satellite Croatia. Photo courtesy of the United States Holocaust Museum The controversy over the canonization of Pope Pius XII concerns whether he spoke out enough against the slaughter of Jews during World War II. But that question is a red herring when trying to grasp the big picture of the Vatican's role during the war. The real question is whether the Vatican supported the world order, or at least aspects of it, that the Third Reich promised to bring, a world order in which dead...

New Allegations by Holocaust Survivors against Franciscan Order - OFMDetails Slowly Emerge about Nazi Gold in Vatican April 16, 2009 San Francisco United States District Court for Northern California Alperin v. Vatican Bank and Franciscan order Case No. C-99-4491 MMC A federal court judge has overruled objections of the defendant Franciscan Order of Friars Minor (OFM) and has permitted the filing of an Amended Complaint in the decade long lawsuit Alperin v. Vatican Bank & Franciscan Order. The plaintiffs, Holocaust survivors and their heirs from former Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, are seeking an accounting and return of gold and...

After more than three decades in United States prisons — a term punctuated by a brief escape and recapture — a 62-year-old Croatian independence fighter was returned to his native country on Thursday, having served his time for a 1976 hijacking and a bombing that killed a police officer. The fighter, Zvonko Busic, led a group that planted a bomb at Grand Central Terminal that later exploded, killing a city police officer, Brian J. Murray. Mr. Busic left the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Ind., boarded a plane in Chicago and touched down in Zagreb about 2:20 p.m. on...

Jan. 26 events will commemorate attack by Croatian nationalists By Jeff White Staff Writer, The Prague Post January 24th, 2007 When Zdenko Kubík thinks about the day of the crash, what he remembers most is the sound the bodies made as they fell to the earth — a rustling overhead, like wind snapping at canvas. "I was outside, and it was just after 5 p.m.," he recalls. "I heard the engine of the plane, and then some banging. Then the sounds got louder." Today, in a grove of birch trees outside the small village of Srbská Kamenice, north Bohemia, a...

A Nazi hunter criticized Serbian authorities on Wednesday for failing to seek the extradition of three men suspected of responsibility in atrocities committed against Jews, Serbs and Gypsies during World War II. Efraim Zuroff, director of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center's office in Israel, said Serbian authorities have done little to bring to justice Croats Ivo Rojnica and Milivoj Asner, and Hungarian Sandor Kepiro. "Sadly, we have heard a lot of nice words, but there was no concrete action" by Serb authorities to start the extradition procedure, Zuroff said after attending a commemoration for some 1,400 victims of the...

It is possible that within a short time a court in the United States will prohibit the publication of the account before us. In the meantime, Haaretz has obtained the testimony given last month by William Gowen, a former intelligence officer in the United States Army, at a federal court in San Francisco. The testimony contains historical and political explosives. It links Giovanni Battista Montini, who later became Pope Paul VI, to the theft of property of Jewish, Serb, Russian, Ukrainian and Roma victims during World War II in Yugoslavia. Many studies and stories have already been written about the...

It is possible that within a short time a court in the United States will prohibit the publication of the account before us. In the meantime, Haaretz has obtained the testimony given last month by William Gowen, a former intelligence officer in the United States Army, at a federal court in San Francisco. The testimony contains historical and political explosives. It links Giovanni Battista Montini, who later became Pope Paul VI, to the theft of property of Jewish, Serb, Russian, Ukrainian and Roma victims during World War II in Yugoslavia. Many studies and stories have already been written about the...

Israel has cancelled a planned visit by the Croatian far-right leader Anto Djapic who spoke lightly of violence and crimes committed by the Balkan country’s Nazi-allied WWII regime, a report said Wednesday. "The chief of a party with a political program based on almost pro-fascist principles is not welcome in my city," Ron Nachman, mayor of the Israeli municipality of Ariel, was quoted as telling Croatian weekly Globus. Nachman said he had accepted the visit before he found out about the background of Anto Djapic, the leader of the ultra-nationalist Croatian Party of Rights (HSP). Notorious leader During the 1990s,...

Ten years ago, on 4 August 1995, Croatian forces began Operation “Storm”, to retake areas under de facto Croatian Serb control. On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Operation “Storm”, Amnesty International calls on the Croatian authorities to immediately start fulfilling their obligation to bring to justice all those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the 1991-95 war, regardless of the ethnicity of the victims or of the perpetrators. In May and August 1995, the Croatian Army and police forces recaptured Western Slavonia and the Krajina region. During and after these military offensives, some 200,000...

San Francisco, Jun. 15, 2005 (CNA) - A ruling this week by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld an earlier decision that Holocaust survivors can continue their claims against the Vatican for the restitution of funds plundered from former Yugoslavia during the Second World War. The majority of the victims of genocide in Croatia during World War II were Orthodox Christian Serbs. More than 500,000 of them were liquidated by the Croatian Ustasha, with the backing of some Catholic clerics. These funds have been referred to as the Ustasha or Croatian treasury. According to a report by Matt...

Holocaust survivors' lawsuit against Vatican proceeds Matt C. Abbott June 14, 2005 From a news release dated June 14, 2005: Vatican dealt another legal setback in Holocaust claims lawsuit The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has denied a Vatican petition for reconsideration and has shown no interest in a Vatican request for an extraordinary en banc hearing of the Ninth Circuit. This follows the Ninth Circuit's April 18, 2005 ruling that Holocaust survivors will be permitted to continue their claims against the Vatican for an accounting and restitution of the so-called Ustasha, or Croatian treasury, consisting of...

Last Updated: Monday, 25 April, 2005, 17:03 GMT 18:03 UK Balkan 'Auschwitz' haunts Croatia Survivors of a World War II death camp have been mourning the victims of Croatia's Nazi puppet regime. As the BBC's Nick Hawton and Marko Kovac report, war crimes committed long before the atrocities of the 1990s still haunt Croatia as it seeks EU membership. The atrocities at Jasenovac shocked even the Nazis In the vast open field, on the banks of the Sava River, the survivors came to pay their respects. Sixty years ago, this was the scene of some of the worst atrocities of...

ZAGREB, Croatia, Oct. 29 (JTA) — The primary image of European Jews during World War II is of sickly prisoners stuck in ghettos and concentration camps. But in Croatia, Jews are remembering a group that turned that stereotype on its head. Two recent events honored a little-known but heroic World War II story: a Jewish combat battalion made up of inmates of a former Italian-run concentration camp on the Croatian island of Rab. The Rab Jewish battalion — originally 245 Jews aged 15-30 with little military training, and one medical unit with 35 girls who offered to serve as nurses...

Croatia: Prime minister condemns Nazi salutes at handball team welcome party, AP, February 7th 2003ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) - The prime minister on Thursday condemned parts of a crowd and the singer at a public welcome-home party honoring Croatia's newly crowned handball world champions for giving Nazi salutes. About 50,000 people gathered Monday in Zagreb's main square to welcome the team home. Folk singer Marko Perkovic Thompson, who performed at the party, shouted a slogan used by Croatia's Nazi forces during World War II. Dozens of fans answered with Nazi salutes. Prime Minister Ivica Racan on Thursday said such behavior "cannot...

Questions raised over government plans to crackdown on those who glory in the country's fascist past. By Drago Hedl in Osijek (BCR No 386, 28-Nov-02) Moves by Ivica Racan's centre-left government to outlaw iconography glorifying Croatia's Second World War fascists are seen in many quarters as a cynical attempt to smooth Croatia's passage into the European Union Draft laws will soon be presented to the Croatian parliament forbidding the display of symbols of the Ustasa, the pro-Nazi movement that governed Croatia under Axis protection from 1941 to 1945. The proposed legislation is being presented as an attempt to combat a...