It seems that the feat of the Genocide Victims Museum, the publication of a list of 5800 names of children saved by Diana Budisavljević during the NDH, will have the effect of starting to speak loudly about that part of history, and therefore ending the manipulation of the number of victims in Jasenovac.
The latest, at the commemoration of the victims in the Donja Gradina camp in BiH, caused a reaction from the profession.
Namely, Milorad Dodik, the president of Republika Srpska, stated in his speech that 700.000 Serbs were killed in Jasenovac. He repeated the information that was spread during the Milošević era, in the nineties, the narrative that has been adopted since then. Milorad Dodika's position obliges that when he presents historical data, he presents those that have been scientifically proven.
Since 2002, the Museum of Genocide Victims in Belgrade has been independently revising the "Victims of the War 1941-1945" census, which was started in 1995 with the Federal Bureau of Statistics in an attempt to determine the victims on the territory of Yugoslavia, regardless of national, religious, ethnic, political and military affiliation.
"During the 44 months of the existence of the Jasenovac camp system, between 122.279 and 130.120 people were killed, according to estimates, so that a quarter of all the civilians of the then Independent State of Croatia lost their lives there." wrote Dr. Dragan Cvetković, museum advisor of the Genocide Victims Museum, in the author's text in "Vremen".
He states that "three-fifths (62,98%) of the total losses in Jasenovac were represented by Serbs, one-sixth (15,47%) by Roma, one-seventh (14,66%) by Jews, one-twentieth (4,91%) by Croats, with a minimum participation in losses (1,11% or 0,87%) of Muslims and members of other and unknown nationalities."
In Jasenovac, a quarter of all martyred civilians of Serbian nationality from the NDH (23,24%) lost their lives, making it the largest execution ground and the primary place of their suffering, wrote Dr. Cvetković, noting that "one should not lose sight of the fact that the majority of the victims Serbs in the NDH were killed in the villages where they lived (on their doorsteps), that is, in locations in their immediate vicinity or in neighboring settlements."
Having been engaged in this business for a long time, he is of the opinion that "we will probably never reach the final number of victims in Yugoslavia, and therefore not even the number of victims in Jasenovac, but we can reliably determine the lowest number of victims, so it will be possible to say - no less from..."
The manipulation of the number of victims in Jasenovac is a very complex issue, in which numerous motives and interests are intertwined on the one hand, and ignorance, mythomania and inexperience in approaching the problem on the other hand, wrote Dr. Cvetković.
Thus, "the magnitude of the crime committed in Jasenovac led to its development into a paradigm of total suffering. In a way, that paradigm began to live a life of its own, by itself, separated and isolated from the general context of suffering. We are witnesses to the fact that today in public opinion the suffering in Jasenovac is equated with the total suffering in the Independent State of Croatia, and that the total losses in the camp are often equated with Serbian victims. This raises the question of whether that process was spontaneous or perfidiously imposed, and what was the role of the state, that is, some republics and their elites (political, scientific...), in that process.
Some started increasing the number of victims, pumping it up to the point of nonsense (800.000, 1.100.000 and finally 1.400.000). Others tried to minimize the number of victims (from a few thousand to Tuđman's 40.000) and thereby deny the suffering in general and primarily the suffering of Serbs.
Their motives are different, but their goal seems to be the same. With a little effort it is not difficult to rationally refute their claims, but it is very difficult to get them to accept it. Unfortunately, supporters of one side or the other are numerous and deeply rooted in the public."
S.Ć.
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