US and EU Should Impose Financial Sanctions on Croatia’s Government Officials for Enforcing Anti-Semitic Laws and Blocking Restitution of Private Property to the Jewish Community
Impose harsh financial sanctions on Croatia’s parliamentarians, including the HDZ and SDP political parties (including their coalition partners), cabinet members and mayors of cities due to anti-Semitic laws blocking the restitution of private property rightfully belonging to the Jewish community. Since 1941, Croatia’s government structures have confiscated private property belonging to Jews and other minority and religious groups.
Background:
More than eighty percent of Croatia’s Jews were killed during World War II under the terror reign of the Ustasha (Ustaša), the pro-Nazi Independent State of Croatia (NDH). Commencing in 1941, the Ustasha regime headed by Ante Pavelic, rounded up Jews, Roma, Serbs and other non-Catholic minorities, sending them to the Jasenovac concentration camp (one of the largest concentration camps in Europe), Sisak children’s concentration camp, and other locations. The Jasenovac concentration camp was referred to as “the Auschwitz of the Balkans.”
According to the Jerusalem-based Yad Vashem, “The concentration of Jews in camps began in June 1941. By the end of that year about two thirds of Croatia’s Jews had been sent to Ustaša camps, where most of them were killed on arrival. In August 1942 and May 1943 the Germans deported the remaining Jews from Croatia to Auschwitz. 30,000 out of Croatia’s 37,000 Jews perished in the Holocaust.” Some 20,000 Jews of Croatia were murdered in the Jasenovac concentration camp alone, while the rest of the individuals were sent to their deaths in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The Baltimore Sun’s report quoted a high-ranking Nazi official’s statement when viewing the brutality in Jasenovac concentration camp in Sisak County, Croatia: “General Edmund von Horstenau, Hitler’s envoy in the capital city of Zagreb, called the place the epitome of horror.”
Today, Croatia’s embattled Jewish community faces the rise of anti-Semitism, brazen pro-Nazi nostalgia, primarily glorifying Ustasha slogans and politicians mired in corruption fanning the flames of extremism for electoral gain. When addressing the concerns of Croatia’s parlous judicial system, the Jewish leader in Zagreb Dr. Ognjen Kraus called the suspect legal framework as “anti-Semtic laws blocking the restitution of private property.