May 5, 2020 — Washington, DC: Over the past few months, the International Leaders Summit’s leadership has been monitoring the rise of anti-Semitism and Holocaust revisionism in America and Europe. As the world focuses on addressing the Covid-19 pandemic, extremists are taking advantage of distracted communities and seeking to fill the current void.
Statement from Natasha Srdoc, co-founder, International Leaders Summit and Jerusalem Leaders Summit:
“As we join with our trusted partners in the healthcare arena to fight coronavirus and save lives, we must remain vigilant in confronting the rise of anti-Semitism and Holocaust revisionism in Europe and the United States. Tragically, the noble endeavors to place the significance of saving lives above all others is by no means universal. In European Union member states Croatia and Hungary, and within the dark corners of America, we are witnessing extremists seizing the opportunity to exploit the crisis at hand. During the month of April 2020, an increasing number of incidents in Croatia and the region reveal how extremists are fanning the flames of hatred and brazenly targeting Jews. Croatia’s brave and courageous journalists were brutally beaten in broad daylight as they reported on a protest organized by a Catholic priest surrounded by extremists saluting and chanting “Za dom spremni,” the Ustasha equivalent of the Nazi salute “Sieg heil,” and prominently displaying images glorifying the Croatian Ustasha government which murdered 80% of Croatia’s Jews during WWII. We must not look the other way. We cannot remain silent.”
2020 Marks the 75th Anniversary of the Liberation of the Jasenovac Death Camp in Croatia
— The Auschwitz of the Balkans. Over 80% of Croatia’s Jews were killed under the rule of the pro-Nazi Croatian Ustasha government.
Relevant articles:
Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso: “Croatia, journalists beaten up on a Ustasha Easter”
Deutsch Welle: New school curriculum raises eyebrows in Orban’s Hungary
WSJ, May 4, 2020: “New York Fed Paper Finds Pandemic a Century Ago Fueled Nazi Rise”
WSJ: Coronavirus Sparks Rise in Anti-Semitic Sentiment, Researchers Say
Medium: Holocaust Denial: Croatia Erases Jasenovac Extermination Camp — Auschwitz of the Balkans
Brief excerpts:
WSJ, May 4, 2020: “New York Fed Paper Finds Pandemic a Century Ago Fueled Nazi Rise”
A century ago, “influenza deaths themselves had a strong effect on the share of votes won by extremists, specifically the extremist national socialist party,” the paper said in reference to the Nazi party, led by Adolf Hitler, who became chancellor of Germany in 1933.
“This effect dominates many other effects and is persistent even when we control for the influences of local unemployment, city spending, population changes brought about by the war, and local demographics or when we instrument for influenza mortality,” Mr. Blickle wrote.
The changed voting patterns specifically appeared to boost Nazis over other movements, the paper said. “The same patterns were not observable for the votes won by other extremist parties, such as the communists.”
Germany’s economy was in terrible shape in the wake of World War I and its defeat. But it wasn’t just the economic environment that helped fuel the rise of the Nazis and the plunge of the world into a second global war.
Nazis got an electoral boost out of the pandemic in part from who was hit. Younger people fared worse in that crisis, and that “may also have spurred resentment of foreigners among the survivors (as has happened in past pandemics), driving voters towards parties whose platform matched such sentiments.”
The effect was also stronger in areas where anti-Jewish sentiment had deep roots. “The correlation between influenza mortality and the vote share won by right-wing extremists is stronger in regions that had historically blamed minorities, particularly Jews, for medieval plagues,” the paper noted.
Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso:
Croatia, journalists beaten up on a Ustasha Easter
In Sirobuja, on the outskirts of Split, a clandestine mass was held on the day of Catholic Easter, in spite of all the prohibitions imposed by the coronavirus epidemic. The journalists documenting the fact were beaten up and verbally abused
“Za dom spremni“, “Journalists are worms”, and then insults, threats, and beatings, all in the churchyard. Such scenes – scenes one would never want to see – were unfortunately recorded this Sunday near Split, right on Easter day.
The protagonist of the story is father Josip Delaš, controversial parish priest of Sirobuja, in the Split suburbs. Violating the ban imposed by the Croatian authorities on any public gathering of over 5 people to contain the current pandemic, father Delaš decided on Sunday to officiate a mass anyway. He announced it on Facebook, and around 10 in the morning he began to receive the first faithful.
This was not father Delaš’ first “underground mass”. A week earlier, on Palm Sunday, he had already attempted the same move, but he had been stopped by the police. On Easter Sunday, however, no agent showed up in Sirobuja, and therefore the priest was able to see his plan through.
In the middle of the morning, however, some local journalists arrived as well, also alerted by social networks. It was then that the priest and the faithful showed their best Easter spirit. In the live Facebook broadcast by Živana Šušak Živković of Dalmatinski portal, several people are seen entering the church, with one of them hitting the reporter’s phone with a handful.
Another video, filmed by Ivana Sivro of TV N1, shows a similar scene: a person behind the wheel of a car approaches the journalist, who is filming from her car, and punches the camera.
Then there are images of scuffles right on the door of the church, with a journalist’s hand crushed in the door and a smartphone thrown on the concrete. There are people who shout “If you publish this video, you will have problems!”, and of course Father Delaš is there too, face purple, railing against journalists – not blasphemy, but close.
Deutsch Welle: New school curriculum raises eyebrows in Orban’s Hungary
Anti-Semitic authors will soon be compulsory reading in Hungarian schools, and history books will be rewritten to promote pride in the nation. Viktor Orban’s controversial new school curriculum is drawing outrage.
The controversial authoritarian rule of Miklos Horthy from 1920 to 1944 is also to be portrayed in a positive light. The fact that Horthy passed anti-Jewish laws in 1920 and later became one of Adolf Hitler’s close allies will be downplayed.
Holocaust Denial: Croatia Erases Jasenovac Extermination Camp — Auschwitz of the Balkans
Croatian politicians fuel Holocaust revisionism, prop-up anti-Semitic figures and brazenly remove “concentration camp” to “collecting center”
A new wave of anti-Jewish sentiment is sweeping through Croatia, fueled by politicians from the Croatian Democratic Union (Hrvatska demokratska zajednica — HDZ), while supported and funded in part by Croatia’s diaspora in America, Australia, Europe and South America. Croatia’s few independent media groups and international organizations have called out HDZ politicians for their direct roles in fueling Holocaust revisionism including concerted efforts undertaken by its President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic and Ivo Stier.
Through their silence, Croatia’s Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic representing the HDZ government and Gordan Jandrokovic, the speaker of the parliament are complicit in whitewashing the Balkan country’s evil past. Worse yet, the West’s diplomats in Zagreb have done very little to address the resurgence of anti-Semitism and brazen Holocaust revisionism.
WSJ: Coronavirus Sparks Rise in Anti-Semitic Sentiment, Researchers Say
“Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been a significant rise in accusations that Jews, as individuals and as a collective, are behind the spread of the virus or are directly profiting from it,” Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress, said in connection with the report’s unveiling. “The language and imagery used clearly identifies a revival of the medieval ‘blood libels’ when Jews were accused of spreading disease, poisoning wells or controlling economies.”
