Melbourne eatery hails leader of Nazi-allied Croatia

[krajina warrior]

Melbourne's Katarina Zrinski restaurant held a celebration this past weekend to honor World War II Croatian leader Ante Pavelic, whose genocidal policies led to the deaths of 400,000 Serbs, Jews and Gypsies.

The restaurant is attached to the local Croatian club.

The event honoring the head of the Croatian fascist Ustasha movement and the leader of Nazi-allied Croatia was an "outrageous affront" both to his victims and to any persons of morality and conscience who oppose racism and genocide, the Simon Wiesenthal Center's chief Nazi-hunter and Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff said on Wednesday.

According to local press reports, a large photograph of Pavelic was hung in the restaurant, T-shirts with his picture and that of two other commanders in the 1941-1945 Ustasha government were offered for sale at the bar, and the establishment of the "Independent State of Croatia" was celebrated.

Zuroff noted this was not the first time that Croatian émigrés in Australia had openly defended Croatian Nazi war criminals.

"It is high time that the authorities in Australia find a way to take the necessary measures to stop such celebrations, which clearly constitute racist, ethnic, and anti-Semitic incitement against Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies," he said.

About 30,000 Croatian Jews - or 80 percent of the country's Jewish population - died during the Holocaust.

[Vonnie]

The Rromani associations Rromani Baxt and La Voix des Rroms, based in Paris France, were informed of the event allegedly held in Melbourne's Katarina Zrinski restaurant to celebrate the war criminal Ante Paveliæ, who was responsible of an attempt of genocide which lead to death tens of thousands of Rroms, Serbs and Jews. His accusation act held 50,000 direct victims but the calculation of the population loss during the war, due to the Ustaši policy, amounts 600,000, out of which 85,000 have been directly evidenced as acts of genocide. Ante Paveliæ was also reposnible for the murder of thousands of communists. He was the creator of the Jasenovac concentration camp, where 23,233 Rroms were slaughtered in the most bestial manner (with hammers for example). A comprehensive list of their names and birthplaces was published recently by dr Rajko Ðuriæ and Antun Miletiæ in « Istorija holokausta Rroma »(Politika A.D. Belgrade 2008).

As a matter of fact, the Rromani associations Rromani Baxt and La Voix des Rroms do not believe that such a celebration could have taken place in a civilized country like Australia, a country which recently apologized for the genocidal crimes perpetrated in the past against the historical inhabitants of its lands, the Aborigenes. The above mentionned associations can not possibly imagine that the level of human awareness (not to mention even political awareness) is so low in this country that a public event would be held in praise of a notorious criminal's name. If this is not a mere rumor and such a happening really occured in Melbourne, it was most probably the meeting of a handful of mentally insane persons, who do not deserve any wider attention, except maybe in psychiatrical publications and studies devoted to demonstrations of vain agressivity aiming at compensing a pathogenic lack of real identity and knowledge.

Be it as it may, this rumor reminds us that Australia, and with her other countries as well, has still a lot to do in the field of education, awareness raising and peace policy to deserve the name of a really democratic country. Real feelings of regret about genocides should be embedded in school programs, through revealing the truth about the genocides of the past, at least in Europe and Australia, in order to definitely eliminate any will of celebrating any criminal's name in the future and giving any occasion of even thinking of perpetrating such monstrosities again.

Dr Marcel COURTHIADE

Mr Saimir MILE

[Yvonne]

Anyone condoning this celebration and participating in it must be held accountable for their actions as it blatantly supports an evil person's (Ante Pavelic) racist ideals and the Nazi party's genocide policies. But, we guess there are no laws here in Australia to deal with this sort of behaviour as it appears to be on the increase and the purpertrators are getting off scott free and putting the finger up at Australia and its multi-cultural policies. When will this country wake up and take notice of these racists actions and act accordingly?

Yvonne