ZAGREB, May 2, 2019 – On the occasion of Yom HaShoa or Holocaust Remembrance Day, representatives of the Jewish Community of Osijek, Osijek-Baranja County and the Town of Osijek on Thursday laid wreaths at the “Mother and Child” memorial by Jewish sculptor Oscar Nemon in that eastern Croatian city.
A representative of the Jewish community of Osijek, Željko Beissman, said Yom HaShoah commemorated the suffering, martyrdom and heroism of Jews during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising from mid-April to mid-May 1943.
“By commemorating that day, we remember the victims and warn of the great evil that happened, the 20th genocide that claimed the lives of more than six million Jews,” said Beissman, adding that the main message of Yom HaShoah was that something like that must never happen again.
The secretary of the Jewish Community of Osijek, Dragutin Kohn, said they had hoped that this year the Holocaust would be commemorated differently.
“We had hoped for a single commemoration at Jasenovac, but unfortunately that did not happen. That’s not good and everyone should understand that one does not go to Jasenovac to listen to political speeches but to pay tribute to the victims of that camp. I hope that next year we will go to Jasenovac in a single, dignified column,” Kohn said, stressing that the past must not be forgotten but that it was time to turn to the future.
He added that the Osijek Jewish Community now has around 150 members and that before World War II around 3,500 Jews lived in Osijek.
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