Speech of the President of the Republic of Croatia at the award of "The Righteous among the Nations" title
Dear guests,
Madame Ambassador of the State of Israel,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We are gathered here today to witness the award of unique honours, the Righteous among the Nations title. Daring, noble people of strong moral principles were ready to run a risk by aiding Jews at the time of Nazi persecutions.
This was dangerous because laws imposed especially harsh punishments for that.
Nevertheless, many risked their lives assisting the persecuted Jews.
After the end of the greatest calamity that befell Jews during their difficult history, the State of Israel was founded in 1948 and Jews could officially honour the courage and nobility of their rescuers. Thus was born the idea of proclaiming rescuers the Righteous among the Nations.
The honour for the Righteous consists of a medal and a certificate. Only a non-Jew who rendered critical assistance to Jews during the Holocaust rescuing them from persecution under the provisions of racial laws and in doing so risked his or her life and safety can be proclaimed a Righteous among the Nations.
The Righteous title entitles one to have a plaque with his or her name and the name of the country of his or her descent placed in the park on the premises of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.
Around 16,000 persons have been proclaimed the Righteous among the Nations up to now, including several dozens from Croatia.
This honour is the highest decoration a non-Jew can receive from the State of Israel. It symbolizes gratitude and eternal memory of the sacrifice the Righteous made for the salvation of Jews as a nation.
Therefore, a sentence from the Talmud inscribed on the medal that is presented to a Righteous reads: "He who saves one life saves the world entire."
The most profound meaning of this honour is the eternal bond that is thus created between a Righteous and the Jewish people.
Jews were first systematically deprived of their fundamental rights, discriminated on every step. Later, the so-called final solution was resorted to – deportation to concentration camps where thousands, tens and hundreds of thousands and millions of them were – killed.
The Holocaust did not appear overnight. Antisemitism that preceded it has been, unfortunately, an inseparable part of European history. There is no European nation not having longer or shorter Antisemitic periods or events.
Our young generation must know that the Ustasha regime that was established with the assistance of the German and Italian occupying forces on the territories under their control did the same thing done by Hitler's Nazis – maybe in a slightly less organised manner.
Here as well, Jews were first forbidden from doing this or that, for example it was forbidden for them to live in the city centre, to have a radio or a telephone, they were dismissed from their jobs and then collected and sent to death camps, the most infamous one being Jasenovac.
Another point needs to be made – not just Jews, but also Serbs, Romanies and Croats who were political opponents of the Ustasha regime ended up in the camps.
My my, you step over your grounds Nazi.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3367514,00.htmlCroatia probes Hitler jokes on sugar packets
FEBRUARY 2007Visitors to
coffee shops in Croatia find unpleasant surprise:
Small packets of sugar bearing Holocaust jokes
Reuters
Published: 02.20.07, 20:51 / Israel Jewish Scene
Small packets of sugar bearing the likeness of Adolf Hitler and carrying Holocaust jokes have been found in some cafes in Croatia, prompting an investigation, the office of the state prosecutor said on Monday.
"The local district attorney in (the eastern town of) Pozega has opened an investigation and is currently looking at the matter," said Martina Mihordin.
The Novi List daily newspaper reported that officials at a small factory in Pozega have confirmed the sugar packs were produced on their premises.
The incident will embarrass the government which has been keen to play down the country's past links with Nazism.
'Revulsion and disgust'Croatia's Ustasha regime sided with the Nazis in World War Two and enforced ethnic laws under which thousands of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies, as well as anti-fascist Croats, were killed in local concentration camps in 1941-45.
The Jerusalem-based anti-Nazi Simon Wiesenthal Center said in a statement it had protested the matter to Croatia's authorities.
Its director,
Efraim Zuroff, expressed his "revulsion and disgust that such an item could be produced these days in a country in which the Holocaust not only took place, but was for the most part carried out by local Nazi collaborators." "If nothing else, this is a disgusting expression of nostalgia for the Third Reich and a period during which Jews, Serbs and Gypsies were mass-murdered (in Croatia)," it said.
Zuroff urged Croatia to force the factory owners to recall the sugar packets immediately, in line with a law against racial, religious or ethnic hatred.
The ADL said it wrote the Croatian Embassy on
February 20 after reports of the sugar packets first surfaced. “Given Croatia’s history during World War II, when thousands of Jews, Serbs, Gypsies and anti-fascists Croats were murdered in concentration camps by the Nazi-allied Ustasha regime, it is shocking that such a product would appear in cafés in Croatia,” wrote ADL Director Abraham Foxman, and National Chairperson Glen Lewy.
Under President
Franjo Tudjman, who governed Croatia from its 1991 independence until 1999, some of the Ustasha symbols were tolerated and their crimes often dismissed in public, which strained relations with Israel.
Subsequent Croatian leaders, who set the country on the road to European Union membership, apologized publicly for the Ustasha crimes.
You were saying....Nazi...?
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