Промоција књиге „Јасеновац-Аушвиц Балкана-усташко царство суровости“- 1.део

PROMOTION OF BOOK AND VIDEO CONFERENCE WITH PROF. DR. GIDEON GREIF

Prof. Dr. Gideon Greif has studied the phenomenon of death factories for 40 years, worked in Yad Vashem for 31 years, is a leading Holocaust historian, a professional witness of the State of Israel in the trials of war criminals in Germany, helped Mossad locate Joseph Mengele, the famous “angel of death” and Interviewed the last 31 Zonderkomandos from Auschwitz and published the cult book “They Cried Without Tears” which has been translated into 12 languages and which served as the basis for the Hollywood film “Saul’s Son” which won an Oscar for The Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards in 2016, by Hungarian director Laszlo Nemes.

He is the author of more than 500 scientific papers on the Holocaust topic, is a member of the board of directors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Complex, and is a professor at universities in Israel, USA, Germany, Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Australia and New Zealand.

(Newspaper article from the newspapers “Srpski glas”)

Promotion of the book “Jasenovac- Auschwitz of the Balkans- Ustasha empire of cruelty” by Prof. Dr. Gideon Greif

The Serbian community of Perth, under the auspices of the Serbian Council of Western Australia, and especially with the efforts of Natasa and Nenad Mladjenovic, and board members Kosta Mijatovic, Ilija Ilic and Nena Samac, had the special privilege of attending the promotion of the extensively documented and richly illustrated monumental monograph “Jasenovac – Auschwitz of the Balkans – Ustasha Empire of Cruelty” (hereinafter abbreviated name) by Israeli historian and researcher of the Institute for the Holocaust Professor Dr. Gideon Greif. After the book had been mentioned in August this year and the announcement of a wider presentation, it was presented at the State Library of Western Australia to the widest audience — all interested communities and citizens of Perth. The promotion was attended by representatives of Serbian communities, Orthodox church communities, a representative of the Jewish Holocaust Institute Jeff Kay, Vardan Vardanian from the Armenian community, and others.

In a short speech, the promotion was blessed by Archpriest Sasa Stojanovic on behalf of the Metropolitan of Australia and New Zealand Siluan, emphasizing that the truth about the suffering of the innocent in Jasenovac is an urgent need of all. The host of the program, Ksenia Arkhipova from the Russian community, then invited Nenad Mladjenovic who greeted those present and emphasized the importance of the presentation because of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the liberation of the Jasenovac camp and the victory over fascism. He mentioned the fact that the world did not know much or did not know at all about the existence of the Jasenovac concentration camp, then that Professor Greif confirmed the fact of over 700,000 victims. Mr. Mladjenovic also stated the fact that the Tesla family had been almost wiped out by the Ustasha of the so-called Independent State of Croatia , and that, among other things, the camp archives had been destroyed before it was liberated. Then, through a video presentation, the writer Dr. Biljana Djorovic from Belgrade, addressed the audience. She is also the book reviewer, fighter against the information darkness and revisionism of history which is just happening with the facts related to Jasenovac. In her presentation, she mentioned the works and many functions of Professor Greif and chronologically presented data on his work and the most important facts about the book “Jasenovac-Auschwitz of the Balkans”, which was printed in English, Hebrew and Serbian, as well as about three thousand pages of Professor Greif’s trilogy. In addition to the first volume about Jasenovac, the second volume is entitled “Ustasha’ s final solution before the Nazi final solution”, and the third: “Alojzije Stepinac, Ustasha vicar – convert or die”. The author Djorovic mentioned other works that dealt with this topic and concluded that Professor Greif undoubtedly deserves the Nobel Prize for his hard work and telling the truth about the sufferings of Serbs, Jews and Roma in the Independent State of Croatia.

After this interesting presentation, Natasha Mladjenovic read a message from the publisher of the book, Boban Stojiljkovic (“Knjiga Komerc”) who, among other things, emphasized the importance of these publications in crime prevention both for future generations and for world history. Natasha Mladjenovic then read a part of an essay on the recently deceased Mrs. Beatrice Greif, Professor Greif’s mother, written by Smilja Tisma who is a survivor of the Jasenovac children’s camp, and a member of the Serbian parliament. The audience learned many more facts about Professor Greif’s the numerous awards, and the exhibitions he organized, and that his mother, also an active fighter for bringing the truth to light, a great friend of Serbia and the Republic of Srpska, was the biggest supporter of her son’s work.

The next guest of the program via internet contact was Dr. Dusan Bastasic, president of the “Jadovno 1941” association, from the Republic of Srpska. He also stressed the importance of the enormous work invested by not only Professor Greif but also those who help to present this work to the public, as well as the problem of revisionism of history and crime. He also mentioned other execution sites of the Second World War, among which the island of Pag.

Then a video connection was established with Gojko Roncevic Mraovic ,the representative of the “Association of Detainees and Descendants”, a survivor of the Jastrebarsko camp which was formed for the children of the Kozara Mountain, but was liberated by the partisans in 1942.Mr. Roncevic reminded that 70,000 children had died in the Independent State of Croatia and that camps for children throughout the history of mankind existed only in the so-called Independent State of Croatia. Among other things, he mentioned the great contribution of Ambassador Dr. Ljiljana Niksic who had organized the first exhibition on Jasenovac at the United Nations and had helped establish cooperation with Israel and Professor Greif in order to preserve the memory and tell the truth about the sufferings of Serbs, Jews and Roma in World War II.

After this instructive presentation, which certainly provided many hitherto unknown facts to the rather represented younger part of the audience, there was the artistic part of the presentation with the performance of the music group “Izvor” with the songs “Tebe pojem” by Mokranjac and the famous song Djurdjevdan whose history was read by Aleksandra, a member of the choir, and those present learned that this sad song was written on the death train that took the detained Serbs from Sarajevo to the place of no return -Jasenovac camp – on the morning of St. George’s Day in 1942.

After the performance of the choir, the direct video contact was established with Professor Greif, who had been following the program for some time. As much as time allowed, he gave an extremely impressive and valuable lecture, in which he presented his book “Jasenovac-Auschwitz of the Balkans”, and the motives that led to its creation. First of all, Professor Greif wanted to study and present the differences between these two camps, because Jasenovac was different in terms of brutality and torture of detainees, which motivated the professor to apply a comparative methodology in the study of these camps for the first time. Both camps were synonymous with uncivilized cruelty, both were named hell on earth, founded by the Nazis and their exponents, both antihuman in nature, without a moral code, founded with the motif of “pure nations” – German and Croatian, respectively. Also common to both camps was the liquidation of the inmates without any mercy. Auschwitz is also known as the “death factory” because some kind of industrial killings were performed  “maintaining cleanliness” through gas killings and cremation, and in Jasenovac, known for its brutality, where the killings were performed by direct contact, passionately, by torture, more extremely, bloodier, or manually using cold weapons, in a word, wild, barbaric methods, reminiscent of the Middle Ages. By researching these brutal killings, the author presented data on 57 different types of killings which were used in Jasenovac. Also, Jasenovac is characterized by brutal killing competitions. The killings in Auschwitz were covered up, unlike in Jasenovac, and the so-called “final solution” was first initiated by the Ustasha, ​​and only then by the German Nazis. The administrative administration in Auschwitz existed and was very developed, while in Jasenovac it did not exist at all. Common to both camps, as well as to other camps among others, was the lack of food, adequate clothing, space, sanitation, lack of medicine and medical treatment, and more. After his lecture, Professor Greif was rewarded with a long round of applause.

Coordinator and holder of the largest share in the large and responsible task of organizing the first promotion in Australia in the multicultural community of Professor Gideon Greif’s book “Jasenovac-Auschwitz of the Balkans”, professor of sociology Natasa Mladjenovic, prepared a small exhibition of photographs of sculptures by young sculptor Katarina Tripkovic Pancic . With these sculptures, the artist participated in the exhibition “Truth about Jasenovac – The right to be remembered” by Professor Greif at the United Nations in 2018. Ms. Mladjenovic is incredibly grateful to the Perfect Iris Production studio, which voluntarily provided technical editing and recording services for the promotion and posting on the YouTube channel, where all those interested can watch this video.

For any ethnicity, to which those who perished in the camps of the Independent State of Croatia belong, as well as those from whose hands they perished, it is important that the truth sees the light of day, because it is the only way to reach catharsis and to strive that never again Jasenovac should be repeated whatever the constellation of these ethnicities may be. And it is clear that downplaying, keeping silent or covering up a crime is tantamount to complicity with it.

Translated from Serbian by Nena Samac ( professional NAATI Serbian-English translator)

The whole promotion was recorded and can be watched on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zj9GcqfVbtY

2 Dec 2020

Promotion of the book  “Jasenovac-Auschwitz of the Balkans-ustasha empire of cruelty“-  part 2