Croatia anti-fascists, Serbs gather at WWII death camp site
ZAGREB—Croatian anti-fascists and Serb minority groups on Saturday held a commemoration ceremony at the site of a notorious World War II death camp, boycotting the official event over alleged government inaction in curbing the surge of neo-Nazi sentiment in the Balkan country.
The ceremony was held a day before the Croatian government marks the attempted escape in 1945 of 1,073 prisoners from the Jasenovac camp when hundreds were killed.
Hundreds of people lined up in a memorial gathering by the site monument, and ambassadors from the United States and several other countries attended the event, Croatian state TV said. Croatia's Jewish groups plan to hold a separate ceremony on Monday.
Tens of thousands of Jews, Serbs and Gypsies died in death camps run by Croatia's pro-Nazi puppet state in World War II. Croatia's Jews, Serbs and anti-fascists have been angered by the authorities' failure to remove a plaque bearing a WWII Croatian pro-Nazi salute from the town of Jasenovac.
A survivor, Slavko Milanovic, told the state TV that Croatia's inability to come to terms with its past was "reopening the old wounds so they cannot heal."
