ZAGREB, September 29, 2018 – The Jasenovac Memorial Site said on Friday it was concerned about the launch of Roman Leljak’s film and book “The Jasenovac Myth” which reduce the number of victims of the WWII concentration camp and sympathise with the Ustasha movement and the 1941-45 Nazi-styled Independent State of Croatia (NDH).
“In the film, the author significantly reduces the number of victims killed in the Jasenovac camp and denies that, in the camp, the Ustasha regime committed mass crimes of genocide and Holocaust against Serbs, Roma, Jews as well as Croats who disagreed with the Ustasha policy,” the public institution said in a press release.
In the film and the book, Leljak “expressed open sympathies for the Ustasha regime, endearingly calling NDH in the initial stage of its creation, during the proclamation of racial laws, a ‘young Croatian state,'” said the press release.
Together with his associates, Leljak is using the tried and tested tactic of bombarding the public with documents to create the appearance of a “scientific” approach to the subject, it added.
“We are concerned about the increasingly frequent downplaying and denial of the crimes committed at the Jasenovac camp occurring in the public sphere,” the press release said. “Such arguments are usually used by individuals and groups that at the same time express sympathy for the Ustasha regime, as is the case with the author of the film ‘The Jasenovac Myth’, who was photographed in front of a bust of NDH leader Ante Pavelić in Australia in 2017.”
