During World War
II Croatia, which during the interwar period had been part
of Yugoslavia, was established as an “independent” satellite
state of Nazi Germany which was ruled by the “Ustasha” Croatian
fascists and implemented policies of genocide and ethnic cleansing
against local minorities. Hundreds of thousands of innocent
civilian Serbs, Jews and Gypsies were harshly persecuted and/or
murdered by the Croatian authorities who established numerous
concentration camps throughout the country to implement their
racist policies. The largest of these was Jasenovac, which
was nicknamed “the Auschwitz of the Balkans” and
in which at lest 85,000 civilians were murdered.
After World War II many of those responsible for these crimes
were prosecuted by the Yugoslav authorities, but numerous perpetrators
were able to escape punishment by fleeing abroad, including
Ustasha leader Ante Pavelic who was head of state in independent
Croatia.
Following the breakup of Yugoslavia and the renewal of Croatian
independence, the Croatian authorities did not initiate any
investigations of Holocaust crimes and Croatian President Franjo
Tudjman published the views of Holocaust deniers in his book
The Wastelands of Historical Reality.
During the past five years, Croatia has successfully prosecuted
former Jasenovac commandant Dinko Sakic, who was extradited
from Argentina, but his case remains the only such achievement
to date, and many other potential cases await investigation
and possible legal action.
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