DEFENDING THE TRUTH ABOUT JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP IN THE INDEPENDENT STATE OF CROATIA
(Letter No. 10)
This letter is written and addressed to you by three Jewish survivors of the death camp Jasenovac in the Nazi Independent State of Croatia during the Second World War who still alive in Serbia:
Cadik Danon,
the architect, who escaped from the Jasenovac concentration camp in 1942
Bozo Svarc
the retired colonel of the Yugoslav Army, who escaped from the Jasenovac concentration camp in the same year
and
Josif Erlih
the retired major of the Yugoslav Army, who was held in Jasenovac to the very bitter end and participated in the break out on 22 of April 1945 when the Croat fascist guards started slaughtering all remaining prisoners
OPEN LETTER TO JOSEPH FRIENDLY
Hi Joe Friendly,
In the letter sent around in your name on 17 of May, it is easy to discover the words and style of Barry Lituchy. There is a libel against a leading Belgrade law firm with accusations of fraud, without proving anything and even without the slightest effort to argue the case. Long on abuse but short on reasoning, this is unmistakenly Barry Lituchy.
We deplore seeing you manipulated. The allegation put now into your mouth differs completely from what you wrote to us through our Belgrade lawyers on 20 of April. Now you supposedly called our offer for the exchange of permission to publish a „fraud“, and two weeks after we made it, you applauded it. You agreed with us on permitting two books on the Jasenovac conference, which would be achieved by our permission to Lituchy to publish our testimonies in his announced book in exchange for the permission of the plaintiffs Mosic and Miletic to let Wanda Schindley to use their short presentations in her Proceedings book, now under injunction because of their individual complaints for copyright infringement.
Two weeks after our offer was made, you were the only one of the four plaintifs to answer it in a positive way in the letter to Mrs Golubovic and Mrs Gacic of the Belgrade lawyer firm Zivkovic and Samardzic:
20/04/06
Dear Ksenija Golubovic Filipovic and Marina Gacic, attorneys at law, and clients: Cadik Danon, Bozo Svarc, and Josif Erlih,
I applaud you and your clients' efforts to resolve the matters peacefully and share with you the vision of the 2 books on shelves together and all the litigation stopped...
…Memory Film (which I represent) supports your position. What remains is for all the other parties to make that choice, Wanda Schindley and Barry Lituchy, in particular. I think if Wanda would go along with it, I have some confidence that Barry would. But I just don't know about Mosic and Miletic. As they get attacked repeatedly they might be inclined to continue fighting. Hopefully, if everyone else goes along with ending the litigation they may also see the wisdom of stopping the legal battle and being included in both books….….I have been trying to reach Wanda Schindley to determine if there can be a mutual agreement to end the litigation by both sides. I welcome help in this regard by other interested parties.Joe Friendly”
We restricted the time for the offer which you applauded in your quoted letter to our lawyers. We wanted to avoid any misuse of it before the meeting of the Executive Committee of the Federation of the Jewish Communities of Serbia and Monte Negro, which put on its agenda the resumption of the case of Aleksandar Mosic at our request. We stated through our lawyers that our offer of 4th of April should be answered by 4th of May in writing, that by 8th of May those who approved it should submit signed and notarized statements, and that from 9th of May the offer would be off the table.
Lituchy and Miletic rejected our offer by ignoring it. Mosic wrote to our lawyers on 4 of May that he does not accept it, while you, Friendly, were again the exception. You did not communicate your approval to our lawyers, but sent to our friend Jasa Almuli, also a Holocaust survivor, a well-intentioned letter in which you stated:
3.5.2006.
Dear Jasa,
Sorry to take so long to respond to your first offer, but I was trying to learn of the prospects of Barry, JRI, Mosic and Miletic going along with the idea of dropping the suit against Wanda's book, and so far, I have learned nothing new. I don't know what resulted from my urgings in that direction. Your wanting my permission to publish my letters to you suggests that you would not without my permission. Is that true? What I would like to see published is that I agree with you that the litigations should be stopped by both sides and Wanda should be free to resume publication of her book so both books would be available to the public, presumably side by side on bookshelves. You could also publish that I appeal to all Barry, Mosic, Miletic, and JRI to accept the settlement offer preferably by May 4th….
Joe Friendly”
As everybody can see, you, Joseph Friendly, never considered our offer a fraud. On the contrary, you tried to achieve its acceptance by Lituchy, Mosic and Miletic.
Now Barry Lituchy turned everything upside down. He was faced with the need to respond in some way to the decision of the Jewish Federation in Serbia to dismiss his Belgrade aid Mosic from functions because he harmed the cause of spreading the truth about Jasenovac by his law suit. In the lack of any plausible response, Lituchy decided to launch an abusive attack by inventing that our offer was “ exposed to be a fraud”. Exposed when, by whom, and exposed how? These questions were not answered. Lituchy’s allegation put into your mouth remained futile.
It is not easy to understand why you, Joe, continue letting Barry Lituchy manipulate you. The misuse of your name could bring you grave calamities. He libelled a prestigious Belgrade law firm using your name. Please, think about the possible consequences of it.
Lituchy manipulated a willing Mosic, and now Mosic’s position in the Jewish community lays shattered and his reputation in the Serbian public opinion seriously damaged. The only help Lituchy could now give him was a declaration that the dismissal of Mosic was “a tragedy”. You could draw some conclusions from it. The same could be done by Mr. Milo Jelisijevic, the editor of Lituchy’s reportedly promised book on the Conference. If he publishes in with testimonies of people whose permission he has not obtained, he may also experience grave calamities.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
DEFENDING THE TRUTH ABOUT JASENOVAC (Letter No. 9)
DEFENDING THE TRUTH ABOUT JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP IN THE INDEPENDENT STATE OF CROATIA
(Letter No. 9)
This letter is written and addressed to you by three Jewish survivors of the death camp Jasenovac in the Nazi Independent State of Croatia during the Second World War who are still alive in Serbia:
Cadik Danon,
The architect, who escaped from the Jasenovac concentration camp in 1942
Bozo Svarc
The retired colonel of the Yugoslav Army, who escaped from the Jasenovac concentration camp in the same year
and Josif Erlih
The retired major of the Yugoslav Army, who was held in Jasenovac to the very bitter end and participated in the break out on 22 of April 1945 when the Croat fascist guards started slaughtering all remaining prisoners
Lituchy’s aid in Belgrade dismissed
The Jewish Federation in Serbia and Montenegro dismissed Aleksandar Mosic, Lituchy’s main Belgrade assistant, from his post of President and member of the Memorial Commission of the Federation. Mosic takes part in the Board of the Jasenovac Research Institute (JRI) and is paid Editor in Chief of the JRI’s periodical.
Together with Antun Miletic, who is Chairman of JRI’s Honorary Advisory Board, Mosic plays a pivotal role in the law suit initiated by Lituchy against the editors of the Proceedings book on the First International Conference on the death camp Jasenovac in Croatia. Among 32 active participants, Mosic and Miletic were the only ones who registered copyright on their short presentations included in the Proceedings book and sued the editors for infringement. On the bases of this two individual suits, the Eastern District Court of New York ruled for a preliminary injunction of the Proceedings book.
The alleged unauthorized use of their papers of a total of 11 pages in the Proceedings book thus deprived the English reading public in US and elsewhere of the description of the horrors of Jasenovac provided by 12 survivors on 159 pages of the Proceedings book.
The dismissal of Mosic was decided on the 14th of May by the Executive Committee of the Federation, which includes representatives of all Jewish ommunities in Serbia and Montenegro. All members of the EC voted for the decision except one. In passing it, the Executive Committee declared that the truth about Jasenovac should be spread around the world and that Mosic harmed the achievement of this objective.
Jasenovac death camp, consisting of several separate units in eastern Croatia, was run exclusively by the Croat cleric-fascist Ustashas who established the Nazi “Independent State of Croatia” with German support during World War Two. In Jasenovac alone they murdered about 23,000 Jews, nearly 70,000 Romas and several hundred thousand Serbs in the most brutal ways. Jasenovac was more gresome than Auschwitz where the Nazi Germans did the mass killing in an ndustrial way. The Croatian Ustashas were killing mainly manually. They used knifes to slit the throats of their victims or blunt instrument, mallets and iron rods to brake their skulls. Only occasionally would they use bullets and furnaces.
After the war, there was a conspiracy to hide the horrors of Jasenovac. The Vatican and émigré Ustashas who escaped with its help used every device to conceal what happened there. An early book on the horrors of Jasenovac, written by the survivor Djordje Milisha after the liberation, was prohibited in Coatia on the request of the representative of the Vatican. The Croatian communist and the Yugoslav leader Tito, of Croat origin, did not do enough to induce the Croat population to face the full truth. Instead of it, they promoted a policy of reconciliation under the slogan of “Brotherhood and Unity,” which failed at the end. A monument on the site of Jasenovac was erected with considerable delay, and Tito never visited the camp. Franjo Tudjman, the president of the secessionist Republic of Croatia, established in 1991 with the support of Germany and USA, dismissed Jasenovac as a myth created by the Serbs and the Jews. His election campaign was financially helped by Ustasha émigrés.
After all this, nobody should wonder why many Belgrade Jews and informed Serbs consider that Barry Lituchy committed a moral sin by suing people who produced the Proceedings book on the First International Conference on Jasenovac, after his failing to do it during eight years. The Conference was held in 1997 at the Kingsborough College in New York. Lituchy was one of the organizers, and he collected some papers, promising a book which never appeared, not even by this very day in May, although he announced that it will e on the book shelves in April 2006.
Lituchy did not accept our offer for a peaceful solution which we made on the 4th of April of this year. We proposed that Mosic and Miletic give permission for the inclusion of their presentations, in the Proceedings book of Wanda Schindley that is under injunction, in exchange for the permission of the three of us to Lituchy to include our testimonies in the book he announced. The Proceedings book would thus be liberated and the second promised one could be distributed without restrictions from our part. We would have two books on the Jasenovac Conference. However we have none now. Our offer expired after 35 days on May 8th. Only one of the Plaintiffs, Joe Friendly, representing Memory Films Production, applauded our offer and declared at the day of the deadline that he shared with us the vision of two books on the shelves of stores and of all litigation stopped. Lituchy and the two Belgrade bulwarks of his court action, Mosic and iletic, did not accept our offer.
Mosic paid for it by his dismissal from functions in the Jewish Federation. Twentyfive Belgrade Jewish survivors appealed in vain to him to withdraw his suit. He earned their disdain. They consider his siding with Lituchy’s court action to the very end as immoral and as dishonoring the victims of Jasenovac.
By the act of dismissing Mosic, the Jewish organization of a whole nation condemned Litchy and what he did.
At the same meeting of May 14th, the Executive Committee decided to sue Lituchy’s JRI for pirating a book of capital importance that was published by the Federation in 1952 and 1957. It described and documented the crimes against the Jews committed in Yugoslavia during WW2 by the fascist occupants and their collaborators. JRI made a reprint of the book without asking and obtaining permission from the Federation. JRI’s only contribution to the reprint was a new foreword. Everything else was copied from the edition in 1957, made by the Federation. It will not ask an injunction of the reprint. It will sue JRI for compensation.
(Letter No. 9)
This letter is written and addressed to you by three Jewish survivors of the death camp Jasenovac in the Nazi Independent State of Croatia during the Second World War who are still alive in Serbia:
Cadik Danon,
The architect, who escaped from the Jasenovac concentration camp in 1942
Bozo Svarc
The retired colonel of the Yugoslav Army, who escaped from the Jasenovac concentration camp in the same year
and Josif Erlih
The retired major of the Yugoslav Army, who was held in Jasenovac to the very bitter end and participated in the break out on 22 of April 1945 when the Croat fascist guards started slaughtering all remaining prisoners
Lituchy’s aid in Belgrade dismissed
The Jewish Federation in Serbia and Montenegro dismissed Aleksandar Mosic, Lituchy’s main Belgrade assistant, from his post of President and member of the Memorial Commission of the Federation. Mosic takes part in the Board of the Jasenovac Research Institute (JRI) and is paid Editor in Chief of the JRI’s periodical.
Together with Antun Miletic, who is Chairman of JRI’s Honorary Advisory Board, Mosic plays a pivotal role in the law suit initiated by Lituchy against the editors of the Proceedings book on the First International Conference on the death camp Jasenovac in Croatia. Among 32 active participants, Mosic and Miletic were the only ones who registered copyright on their short presentations included in the Proceedings book and sued the editors for infringement. On the bases of this two individual suits, the Eastern District Court of New York ruled for a preliminary injunction of the Proceedings book.
The alleged unauthorized use of their papers of a total of 11 pages in the Proceedings book thus deprived the English reading public in US and elsewhere of the description of the horrors of Jasenovac provided by 12 survivors on 159 pages of the Proceedings book.
The dismissal of Mosic was decided on the 14th of May by the Executive Committee of the Federation, which includes representatives of all Jewish ommunities in Serbia and Montenegro. All members of the EC voted for the decision except one. In passing it, the Executive Committee declared that the truth about Jasenovac should be spread around the world and that Mosic harmed the achievement of this objective.
Jasenovac death camp, consisting of several separate units in eastern Croatia, was run exclusively by the Croat cleric-fascist Ustashas who established the Nazi “Independent State of Croatia” with German support during World War Two. In Jasenovac alone they murdered about 23,000 Jews, nearly 70,000 Romas and several hundred thousand Serbs in the most brutal ways. Jasenovac was more gresome than Auschwitz where the Nazi Germans did the mass killing in an ndustrial way. The Croatian Ustashas were killing mainly manually. They used knifes to slit the throats of their victims or blunt instrument, mallets and iron rods to brake their skulls. Only occasionally would they use bullets and furnaces.
After the war, there was a conspiracy to hide the horrors of Jasenovac. The Vatican and émigré Ustashas who escaped with its help used every device to conceal what happened there. An early book on the horrors of Jasenovac, written by the survivor Djordje Milisha after the liberation, was prohibited in Coatia on the request of the representative of the Vatican. The Croatian communist and the Yugoslav leader Tito, of Croat origin, did not do enough to induce the Croat population to face the full truth. Instead of it, they promoted a policy of reconciliation under the slogan of “Brotherhood and Unity,” which failed at the end. A monument on the site of Jasenovac was erected with considerable delay, and Tito never visited the camp. Franjo Tudjman, the president of the secessionist Republic of Croatia, established in 1991 with the support of Germany and USA, dismissed Jasenovac as a myth created by the Serbs and the Jews. His election campaign was financially helped by Ustasha émigrés.
After all this, nobody should wonder why many Belgrade Jews and informed Serbs consider that Barry Lituchy committed a moral sin by suing people who produced the Proceedings book on the First International Conference on Jasenovac, after his failing to do it during eight years. The Conference was held in 1997 at the Kingsborough College in New York. Lituchy was one of the organizers, and he collected some papers, promising a book which never appeared, not even by this very day in May, although he announced that it will e on the book shelves in April 2006.
Lituchy did not accept our offer for a peaceful solution which we made on the 4th of April of this year. We proposed that Mosic and Miletic give permission for the inclusion of their presentations, in the Proceedings book of Wanda Schindley that is under injunction, in exchange for the permission of the three of us to Lituchy to include our testimonies in the book he announced. The Proceedings book would thus be liberated and the second promised one could be distributed without restrictions from our part. We would have two books on the Jasenovac Conference. However we have none now. Our offer expired after 35 days on May 8th. Only one of the Plaintiffs, Joe Friendly, representing Memory Films Production, applauded our offer and declared at the day of the deadline that he shared with us the vision of two books on the shelves of stores and of all litigation stopped. Lituchy and the two Belgrade bulwarks of his court action, Mosic and iletic, did not accept our offer.
Mosic paid for it by his dismissal from functions in the Jewish Federation. Twentyfive Belgrade Jewish survivors appealed in vain to him to withdraw his suit. He earned their disdain. They consider his siding with Lituchy’s court action to the very end as immoral and as dishonoring the victims of Jasenovac.
By the act of dismissing Mosic, the Jewish organization of a whole nation condemned Litchy and what he did.
At the same meeting of May 14th, the Executive Committee decided to sue Lituchy’s JRI for pirating a book of capital importance that was published by the Federation in 1952 and 1957. It described and documented the crimes against the Jews committed in Yugoslavia during WW2 by the fascist occupants and their collaborators. JRI made a reprint of the book without asking and obtaining permission from the Federation. JRI’s only contribution to the reprint was a new foreword. Everything else was copied from the edition in 1957, made by the Federation. It will not ask an injunction of the reprint. It will sue JRI for compensation.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
DEFENDING THE TRUTH ABOUT JASENOVAC (Letter No. 8)
DEFENDING THE TRUTH ABOUT JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP IN THE INDEPENDENT STATE OF CROATIA
(Letter No. 8)
This letter is written and addressed to you by three Jewish survivors of the death camp Jasenovac in the Nazi Independent State of Croatia during the Second World War who are still alive in Serbia:
Cadik Danon,
an architect, who escaped from the Jasenovac concentration camp in 1942
Bozo Svarc
a retired colonel of the Yugoslav Army, who escaped from the Jasenovac concentration camp in the same year
and
Josif Erlih
a retired major of the Yugoslav Army, who was held in Jasenovac to the very bitter end and participated in the break out on 22 of April 1945 when the Croat fascist guards started slaughtering all remaining prisoners
Will Lituchy use the chance?
The three of us offered Barry Lituchy on April 4 , under condition, to let him print our testimonies given at the First International Conference on the Jasenovac death camp in the book he announced for this April, eight years after the event. Our condition was that Lituchy's partners in the lawsuit he initiated, A. Miletic and A. Mosic, permit the use of their short presentations at the same Conference in the Proceedings Book already published by Dr Wanda Schindley and her Dallas Publishing.
Such an exchange of releases would result in two books on the shelves of bookstores, one promised by Lituchy and one produced by Schindley, whose distribution was temporarily stopped by court order following suits by Miletic and Mosic claiming their presentations were included without their permission.
We made our offer for such a peaceful solution through the office of our Belgrade lawyers, motivated by the desire to facilitate spreading the truth about the horrors of the worst death-camp in Europe - and by the need to avoid a further waste of time, energy and money in an avoidable court litigation. Prior to this offer, out lawyers communicated to Lituchy, his lawyer, the editor of his announced book M. Yelisiyevich and the Eastern District Court of New York that B. Lituchy did not have our permission to use our presentations given at the Jasenovac conference - and that he will be challenged in court if he does not respect our will.
In fact we were not, and still are not interested in going to court. If we are obliged to though, we will do it! But the purpose of our communication of March 14 was to make these people aware that they cannot infringe on our copyright unchallenged - and that they would only gain if they accepted the exchange of releases we wll offer.
Regarding our offer, our Belgrade lawyers stated on April 4: ”By expressing our firm belief that the audience shall be the one to decide which of the two books is better, or a more valuable contribution to the history, we are authorized to offer you a peaceful settlement of the dispute… Our clients would provide you with the publishing licenses, in exchange for publishing licences of Mr. Mosic and Mr. Miletic for the book that Dallas Publishing released, accompanied by their withdrawal of the Claim for Copyright Infringement against Wanda Schindley, a/k/a Dallas Publishing and Kingsborough Community College. We believe that this would be a most reasonable ending of this dispute as far as permissions for testimony and presentations for the two books are concerned and would allow the release of the JRI book that would include the first-hand testimony of the three living Belgrade survivors.
“We are emphasizing once more that it is not our clients' will to launch judicial proceedings against anyone, especially since we stand firmly at the point that the audience shall not be deprived of a single book, especially not one regarding such an important matter as Jasenovac; we will, however be forced to do so if our rights and clearly expressed will are disregarded”
Our offer remained without any answer for two weeks until April 19 when one of the plaintiffs, Joseph Friendly of Memory Films Production greeted our “effort to resolve matters peacefully” and declared that he shared with us “the vision of 2 books on the shelves together and all litigation stopped.”
Friendly’s action has merit, but also serious drawbacks. His letter to our lawyers approving our offer was sent in his name only. The eventual consent of Barry Lituchy and plaintiffs Miletic and Mosic was wrapped in hazy wording and was therefore uncertain. For that reason we instructed our lawyers on April 21 to inform Mr Friendly that although they appreciated his willingness to act reasonably, they could not act on this issue yet, since the other addressees of the settlement offer gave no response to our proposal. Our lawyers stated: ”We find it crucial that all the addressees are willing to settle, and to that extent we expect their answers in writing not later than May 4th , with notarized statements not later than May 8th. Otherwise, we shall deem it as all the addressees refused our offer, and the offer shall not be effective as of May 9th”.
We had to determine firm dates in order to avoid the repetition of what happened with the settlement procedure of the other Defendant and creator of the Proceedings Book, Petar Makara at the meeting of the Jewish Federation in Belgrade.. We, 25 survivors asked that A. Mosic be deprived of his functions in the Jewish Federation because of his immoral and harmful participation in the lawsuit against the authors of the Jasenovac Proceedings Book so precious to all of us. During the meeting, when that organization considered our request, the Lituchy team played tricks which we described in detail in our Letter under the title “Deceit and Blackmail.”
We are ready for a peaceful solution in clear and well-defined terms. We gave Mr Lituchy and his associates one whole month to deliberate and make up their minds on our offer. If they accept, it will benefit the truth about Jasenovac and their own honour. If they miss this chance it will be impossible for them to convince us that they are putting the interests of research about Jasenovac above their own private interests - which cannot be easily understood and even less condoned.
(Letter No. 8)
This letter is written and addressed to you by three Jewish survivors of the death camp Jasenovac in the Nazi Independent State of Croatia during the Second World War who are still alive in Serbia:
Cadik Danon,
an architect, who escaped from the Jasenovac concentration camp in 1942
Bozo Svarc
a retired colonel of the Yugoslav Army, who escaped from the Jasenovac concentration camp in the same year
and
Josif Erlih
a retired major of the Yugoslav Army, who was held in Jasenovac to the very bitter end and participated in the break out on 22 of April 1945 when the Croat fascist guards started slaughtering all remaining prisoners
Will Lituchy use the chance?
The three of us offered Barry Lituchy on April 4 , under condition, to let him print our testimonies given at the First International Conference on the Jasenovac death camp in the book he announced for this April, eight years after the event. Our condition was that Lituchy's partners in the lawsuit he initiated, A. Miletic and A. Mosic, permit the use of their short presentations at the same Conference in the Proceedings Book already published by Dr Wanda Schindley and her Dallas Publishing.
Such an exchange of releases would result in two books on the shelves of bookstores, one promised by Lituchy and one produced by Schindley, whose distribution was temporarily stopped by court order following suits by Miletic and Mosic claiming their presentations were included without their permission.
We made our offer for such a peaceful solution through the office of our Belgrade lawyers, motivated by the desire to facilitate spreading the truth about the horrors of the worst death-camp in Europe - and by the need to avoid a further waste of time, energy and money in an avoidable court litigation. Prior to this offer, out lawyers communicated to Lituchy, his lawyer, the editor of his announced book M. Yelisiyevich and the Eastern District Court of New York that B. Lituchy did not have our permission to use our presentations given at the Jasenovac conference - and that he will be challenged in court if he does not respect our will.
In fact we were not, and still are not interested in going to court. If we are obliged to though, we will do it! But the purpose of our communication of March 14 was to make these people aware that they cannot infringe on our copyright unchallenged - and that they would only gain if they accepted the exchange of releases we wll offer.
Regarding our offer, our Belgrade lawyers stated on April 4: ”By expressing our firm belief that the audience shall be the one to decide which of the two books is better, or a more valuable contribution to the history, we are authorized to offer you a peaceful settlement of the dispute… Our clients would provide you with the publishing licenses, in exchange for publishing licences of Mr. Mosic and Mr. Miletic for the book that Dallas Publishing released, accompanied by their withdrawal of the Claim for Copyright Infringement against Wanda Schindley, a/k/a Dallas Publishing and Kingsborough Community College. We believe that this would be a most reasonable ending of this dispute as far as permissions for testimony and presentations for the two books are concerned and would allow the release of the JRI book that would include the first-hand testimony of the three living Belgrade survivors.
“We are emphasizing once more that it is not our clients' will to launch judicial proceedings against anyone, especially since we stand firmly at the point that the audience shall not be deprived of a single book, especially not one regarding such an important matter as Jasenovac; we will, however be forced to do so if our rights and clearly expressed will are disregarded”
Our offer remained without any answer for two weeks until April 19 when one of the plaintiffs, Joseph Friendly of Memory Films Production greeted our “effort to resolve matters peacefully” and declared that he shared with us “the vision of 2 books on the shelves together and all litigation stopped.”
Friendly’s action has merit, but also serious drawbacks. His letter to our lawyers approving our offer was sent in his name only. The eventual consent of Barry Lituchy and plaintiffs Miletic and Mosic was wrapped in hazy wording and was therefore uncertain. For that reason we instructed our lawyers on April 21 to inform Mr Friendly that although they appreciated his willingness to act reasonably, they could not act on this issue yet, since the other addressees of the settlement offer gave no response to our proposal. Our lawyers stated: ”We find it crucial that all the addressees are willing to settle, and to that extent we expect their answers in writing not later than May 4th , with notarized statements not later than May 8th. Otherwise, we shall deem it as all the addressees refused our offer, and the offer shall not be effective as of May 9th”.
We had to determine firm dates in order to avoid the repetition of what happened with the settlement procedure of the other Defendant and creator of the Proceedings Book, Petar Makara at the meeting of the Jewish Federation in Belgrade.. We, 25 survivors asked that A. Mosic be deprived of his functions in the Jewish Federation because of his immoral and harmful participation in the lawsuit against the authors of the Jasenovac Proceedings Book so precious to all of us. During the meeting, when that organization considered our request, the Lituchy team played tricks which we described in detail in our Letter under the title “Deceit and Blackmail.”
We are ready for a peaceful solution in clear and well-defined terms. We gave Mr Lituchy and his associates one whole month to deliberate and make up their minds on our offer. If they accept, it will benefit the truth about Jasenovac and their own honour. If they miss this chance it will be impossible for them to convince us that they are putting the interests of research about Jasenovac above their own private interests - which cannot be easily understood and even less condoned.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
DEFENDING THE TRUTH ABOUT JASENOVAC (Letter No. 7)
DEFENDING THE TRUTH ABOUT JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP IN THE INDEPENDENT STATE OF CROATIA
(Letter No. 7)
This letter is written and addressed to you by three Jewish survivors of the death camp Jasenovac in the Nazi Independent State of Croatia during the Second World War who are still alive in Serbia:
Cadik Danon,
an architect, who escaped from the Jasenovac concentration camp in 1942
Bozo Svarc
a retired colonel of the Yugoslav Army, who escaped from the Jasenovac concentration camp in the same year
and
Josif Erlih
a retired major of the Yugoslav Army, who was held in Jasenovac to the very bitter end and participated in the break out on 22 of April 1945 when the Croat fascist guards started slaughtering all remaining prisoners
Lituchy’s threats do not inspire trust
One day before the Jewish Federation in Belgrade considered the participation of its member, Aleksandar Mosic in the lawsuit against the Proceedings book on the First International Conference on the death camp Jasenovac, its president A. Singer received a letter from a person he had never met or heard of before. It was written by a lady who pledged the political and moral integrity of Barry Lituchy who instigated the court action which caused the injunction of this book so precious to us.
We believe that this lady defended Lituchy, the CEO of the Jasenovac Research Institute, convinced sincerely that he was a person of integrity, acting honestly. We must tell her and others who still share her illusions, that our experience with Mr Lituchy reveals him to be a very different person.
Our first negative experience was because of the lawsuit which he initiated and which in our judgment is immoral and extremely harmful. You cannot sit on a heap of papers and reports collected at a significant Conference as Lituchy did - and over a period of eight years not produce the Proceedings Book which he promised - and then go and sue other people who did what he failed to do.
Our second negative experience was the extremely aggressive and abusive actions by Mr. Lituchy after the upheaval produced by his lawsuit. The main videographer of the Conference, Mr. Vladimir Bibic knows many facts that can destroy the credibility of the plaintiff’s accusations - and because of this Mr. Lituchy has heaped him with abuses and threats.
We are in possession of the transcript of three consecutive telephone calls Lituchy made to Bibic on the 2nd of October 2005 and recorded on his answering machine. Lituchy’s rage was apparently provoked because Bibic declared that a certain Ms. Nadja invited him to shoot the Conference and NOT Mr Lituchy, who is determined to be seen as its chief organizer. Even if Mr Bibic was in error, which we doubt, this could not and should not have triggered the torrent of rage ending in a death threat to Bibic by Lituchy. We must admit that although we are all octogenarians and experienced much evil as Jews during the Second World War, we have rarely, as civilized people, come across such haranguing and intimidating expression as used by Mr Lituchy’s in his calls to Bibic.
The transcritp reveales that the real reason for Lituchy’s threats was the danger that Bibic might reveal facts supporting the case of the accused authors of the Proceedings Book, Dr Wanda Schindley and Petar Makara whom Lituchy mentions several times during these telephone calls. In his growing rage Lituchy threatens Bibic with a court suit and even death.
We wonder what conclusions the above mentioned lady will draw from these telephone calls. In our judgment a person acting this way CANNOT be morally honest whatever political views he pretends to profess.
We were not the only ones to be startled by Lituchy’s outbursts. His colleague Joseph Friendly, also a plaintiff against Schindley and Makara, expressed his critical views to Lituchy’s erstwhile lawyer, Mr Kaplan. The following is a shortened transcript of Lituchy’s telephone calls to Bibic.
October 2, 2005:
Vladimir, This is Barry here. I know you are away but I just want to say something to you because you made me feel very bad after that phone call. You really...I feel you really disrespected me.
You say now that Nadja got you involved with these survivors and with the Conference and that is such crap Vladimir!
……And, you know, it really pains me that you are doing things with Schindley and Makara behind my back. You know, you should not be writing letters and telling.… and talking to them without telling me about it……
BEEP. The machine stopped recording him.
You know Vladimir… You really, completely dump(??) things with them and have accepted their view of things and that really upsets me……..
…….You can go on this way if it is your position but you are going to get in conflict with us, if that is your attitude that you want completely to disregard what we did... If that is your attitude then we are heading to a conflict in court. That's all I can tell you. So, be prepared!
BEEP (new message):
Vladimir, I am calling you a third time because I just talked with Nadja... And,... the situation is this that if you pretend and you go on with Schindley division that I have nothing to do with this Conference and that you came in [to that Conference] simply on your own and not at my request you will find yourself in a lot of trouble because Nadja will testify against you...
OK? So, before you write anything you better be very careful. Because if you lie and you write lies and you send it into the Court and say that you came in and we have nothing to do with it - WE WILL KILL YOU.
That's it! Bye!"
END –
What is it that Bibic knows that Lituchy is fearful will come out in Court?
There are two important points.
First, Bibic knows that Memory Films Production, one of the plaintiffs against the authors of the Proceedings Book on the Jasenovac conference, does NOT exist as it was presented in the law suit. It is NOT a partnership of Joseph Friendly, Barry Lituchy and Vladimir Bibic and never had any Statute, since Bibic NEVER signed anything to this effect. Friendly and Lituchy registered a copyright on the video series of the Conference and were selling it in the name of Memory Films Production. Bibic was EXCLUDED from this copyright although he did the main shooting at the Conference - so in effect Bibic was being robbed of his own work.
Second, Bibic knows that this video series was not the only material which Wanda Schindley and Petar Makara used in order to produce the Proceedings Book, as was falsely stated in the complaint. Bibic told friends and is ready to confirm, if the Court asks him, that he gave Schindley his raw footage of the Conference believing firmly that this material should be given FREELY for use to anyone desiring to spread the truth about the Jasenovac death camp.
Monday, April 17, 2006
DEFENDING THE TRUTH ABOUT JASENOVAC: (Letter No. 6)
DEFENDING THE TRUTH ABOUT JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP IN THE INDEPENDENT STATE OF CROATIA
(Letter No. 6) This letter is written and addressed to you by three Jewish survivors of the death camp Jasenovac in the Nazi Independent State of Croatia during the Second World War who are still alive in Serbia: Cadik Danon,an architect, who escaped from the Jasenovac concentration camp in 1942. Božo Švarca retired colonel of the Yugoslav Army, who escaped from the Jasenovac concentration camp in the same year
and Josif Erliha retired major of the Yugoslav Army, who was held in Jasenovac to the very bitter end and participated in the break out on 22 of April 1945 when the Croat fascist guards started slaughtering all remaining prisoners.
DEEDS COUNT - NOT WORDS All three of us are octogenarians. Life has taught us that what counts are actions, not words. This applies to Barry Lituchy, who is no more lecturer of Kingsborough College in New York, and his right hand man in Belgrade, Aleksandar Mosic, who together with him launched a court suit blocking the distribution of a rare book describing the horrors of the Jasenovac death camps.
Lituchy seduced many Serbs by his vocal presentation of JRI's cause until he showed his real face by initiating a court action against the Proceedings Book of the First International Conference on Jasenovac. And Mosic, who had earlier in life gained respect by his gentle speaking and good manners, has ended up as a ruthless man not even ashamed by the harsh criticism of 25 Belgrade veterans of the Jewish Community.
But no one can deceive everyone all the time! When at the beginning of the year, we were collecting the signatures for our appeal to Mosic to abandon his law suit against the publisher and editor of the Proceedings Book, an old and very respected professor of biology at the Belgrade University said about Mosic : « Obicna vrdalama « ( a trickster ). That expression in Swerbian and a simmilar one derived from German, describe a person who mispresents himself - which surely applies to Mosic. For instance, in the text of the court suit, Mosic is presented as a holocaust historian with published works. The truth is that as far as we know, he is a chemical engineer and has NEVER written any historical research work.
In the memorandum of the Jasenovac Research Institute, where Mosic is a board member and editor in chief of the JRI Bulletin , next to his name we find: «Jewish Museum in Belgrade « . We have been informed that Mosic has not been the president of the Jewish Museum since the late eighties and there is no record of any authorization for him to act as its representative in an American affiliation.
The expression «vrdalama» also implies a person inclined to deceit. In 1952 our Jewish Federation published a famous book about the crimes against the Jews in Yugoslavia during WWV2. This book has been out of print for a number of years.
The JRI, where Mosic is paid as an editor, has reprinted the book. And the cover shows as the publisher, the Jasenovac Research Institute with offices in Belgrade (non existent) and New York !
As reported in the Federation Bulletin for March 2006 by A. Lebl , « no one advised the Jewish Federation about their intent to reprint this book,even less so to ask its permission « That is why Lebl calls this reprint «the pirated edition».
The preface to this pirated edition was written by Darko Vasovic, Aleksandar Mosic and Barry Lituchy. That is their only input to the new edition . Everything else is simply a reprint of the first edition.
Lituchy’s partner Mosic uses tricks to achieve his goals.
We have been advised by the members of the Belgrade based Association of the survivors of the Jasenovac camps, that at the end of October 2005, Mosic visited unannounced the very ill Mara Vejnovic and tricked her into signing a paper that compromised her earlier permission to the publisher of the Proceedings Book - to publish her testimony given at the conference in New York. Also compromised was her own letter in which she RENOUNCED the right previously given to Barry Lituchy for the same testimony. After realizing what Mosic had done, the ailing Mara Vejnovic REAFFIRMED her support for the Proceedings Book by once more signing the documents in favor of the publisher.
And this is not all!
In his letter to the members of the Executive Committee of March 26, Mosic falsified facts related to Wanda Shindley, author of the Proceedings Book and her relationship with Kingsborough College and the court’s preliminary injunction prohibiting distribution of the Proceedings Book. We are in the possession of two documents that prove that Mosic’s statements that Wanda Schindley had no authorization to put Kingsborough College as the copyright holder of the Proceedings Book and that the court ordered the injunction on demand of Kingsborough College - ARE ENTIRELY WRONG!
The first document is the declaration (affidavit) sent to the New York court by the Head of the History department of the Kingsborough College, Prof. Dr Bernard Klein. He was the main organizer (together with Dr. Milan Bulajic) and he chaired the conference. In his statement Dr Klein claims that he “expected that the papers submitted to the College and proceedings of the First Conference would one day be published “and he says “I was quite pleased to learn that the book would finally be published”. He continues:“I spoke with Dr.Schindley and I was also pleased to have a copyright for the Proceeding Book under my department at Kingsborough College “.In the same declaration Dr. Klein also says: “During the years since the 1997 conference, I have spoken with Dr. Bulajic, Dr. Schindley and Petar Makara about the publication of the Proceedings Book and approved the efforts to document the proceedings of the conference in a book“ As for Mosic’s statement that the distribution of the books was forbidden by a court injunction based on the demands of Kingsborough College, the court decision dated Jan 24, 2006 tells something quite different: “The Court grants plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction based on the claims of individual plaintiffs Aleksandar Mosic and Antun Miletic. The Court need not and does not reach the question of whether Memory Film Productions is entitled to a preliminary injunction “” and so on….
The fact is that the SOLE claim of the copyright infringement rests with two individuals, Mosic and Miletic and their claims are the reason behind the temporary injunction. That brings us to the crucial question: How could Mosic determine that the unauthorized publication of his paper of a few pages that he read at the First Conference on Jasenovac, is more important than the testimonies about the horrors of Jasenovac given by TWELVE SURVIVORS - testimonies now banished from further distribution because of HIS suit !???
Mosic is not able to answer this important question, so he has moved away from the copyright issue as the main reason for his being a plaintiff. He now talks only about the quality of the Proceedings Book! He writes: "I continue to insist that the quality of the Proceedings Book is the basic, most important reason for the suit”
However, Mosic has never given any valid evidence for his claims He has not named the historians whose critical opinion he mentions! No reputable historian has joined this frivolous case for copyright infringement. The only two people involved are Mosic, a chemical engineer and a Croatian historian Antun Miletic. Nobody else !!! In his letter dated March 26 to the members of the Executive board of the Jewish Federation, Mosic attaches to the name of Wanda Schindley a derogatory comment aimed at Barry Lituchy and made by a very respected historian and writer Dr. Srdja Trifkovic . In response to one of our letters sent to many important individuals,
Dr Trifkovic wrote: “ An esteemed "Professor" who harasses octogenarians in pursuit of his nefarious objectives is at the moral level of a sewer rat “.(this comment was clearly aimed at Lituchy who is known to lie about his credentials and who uses the title of “professor”).
But in his letter, Mosic writes that there are respectable intellectuals who have “characterized the moral values of Wanda Schindley as those at the level of sewer rats “ To deceitfully pin this characterization now on Wanda Schindley instead of its intended target, Barry Lituchy, is unbelievable even for someone like Mosic !!!
Mosic now complains that our accusations are damaging his health, so he is threatening to take us to court.
Up until now, we have tried to keep this very serious case within our Jewish Federation and to resolve it there. Starting a court case like this would cause much damage because it will publicly reveal the shameful fact that one Jewish man from Serbia is behind the injunction of the Proceedings Book on the First Jasenovac Conference. Several hundreds of thousands Serbs were massacred at Jasenovac.
The consequences of a public court hearing can be avoided by removing A. Mosic from all the functions in our Federation without any further delay...
(Letter No. 6) This letter is written and addressed to you by three Jewish survivors of the death camp Jasenovac in the Nazi Independent State of Croatia during the Second World War who are still alive in Serbia: Cadik Danon,an architect, who escaped from the Jasenovac concentration camp in 1942. Božo Švarca retired colonel of the Yugoslav Army, who escaped from the Jasenovac concentration camp in the same year
and Josif Erliha retired major of the Yugoslav Army, who was held in Jasenovac to the very bitter end and participated in the break out on 22 of April 1945 when the Croat fascist guards started slaughtering all remaining prisoners.
DEEDS COUNT - NOT WORDS All three of us are octogenarians. Life has taught us that what counts are actions, not words. This applies to Barry Lituchy, who is no more lecturer of Kingsborough College in New York, and his right hand man in Belgrade, Aleksandar Mosic, who together with him launched a court suit blocking the distribution of a rare book describing the horrors of the Jasenovac death camps.
Lituchy seduced many Serbs by his vocal presentation of JRI's cause until he showed his real face by initiating a court action against the Proceedings Book of the First International Conference on Jasenovac. And Mosic, who had earlier in life gained respect by his gentle speaking and good manners, has ended up as a ruthless man not even ashamed by the harsh criticism of 25 Belgrade veterans of the Jewish Community.
But no one can deceive everyone all the time! When at the beginning of the year, we were collecting the signatures for our appeal to Mosic to abandon his law suit against the publisher and editor of the Proceedings Book, an old and very respected professor of biology at the Belgrade University said about Mosic : « Obicna vrdalama « ( a trickster ). That expression in Swerbian and a simmilar one derived from German, describe a person who mispresents himself - which surely applies to Mosic. For instance, in the text of the court suit, Mosic is presented as a holocaust historian with published works. The truth is that as far as we know, he is a chemical engineer and has NEVER written any historical research work.
In the memorandum of the Jasenovac Research Institute, where Mosic is a board member and editor in chief of the JRI Bulletin , next to his name we find: «Jewish Museum in Belgrade « . We have been informed that Mosic has not been the president of the Jewish Museum since the late eighties and there is no record of any authorization for him to act as its representative in an American affiliation.
The expression «vrdalama» also implies a person inclined to deceit. In 1952 our Jewish Federation published a famous book about the crimes against the Jews in Yugoslavia during WWV2. This book has been out of print for a number of years.
The JRI, where Mosic is paid as an editor, has reprinted the book. And the cover shows as the publisher, the Jasenovac Research Institute with offices in Belgrade (non existent) and New York !
As reported in the Federation Bulletin for March 2006 by A. Lebl , « no one advised the Jewish Federation about their intent to reprint this book,even less so to ask its permission « That is why Lebl calls this reprint «the pirated edition».
The preface to this pirated edition was written by Darko Vasovic, Aleksandar Mosic and Barry Lituchy. That is their only input to the new edition . Everything else is simply a reprint of the first edition.
Lituchy’s partner Mosic uses tricks to achieve his goals.
We have been advised by the members of the Belgrade based Association of the survivors of the Jasenovac camps, that at the end of October 2005, Mosic visited unannounced the very ill Mara Vejnovic and tricked her into signing a paper that compromised her earlier permission to the publisher of the Proceedings Book - to publish her testimony given at the conference in New York. Also compromised was her own letter in which she RENOUNCED the right previously given to Barry Lituchy for the same testimony. After realizing what Mosic had done, the ailing Mara Vejnovic REAFFIRMED her support for the Proceedings Book by once more signing the documents in favor of the publisher.
And this is not all!
In his letter to the members of the Executive Committee of March 26, Mosic falsified facts related to Wanda Shindley, author of the Proceedings Book and her relationship with Kingsborough College and the court’s preliminary injunction prohibiting distribution of the Proceedings Book. We are in the possession of two documents that prove that Mosic’s statements that Wanda Schindley had no authorization to put Kingsborough College as the copyright holder of the Proceedings Book and that the court ordered the injunction on demand of Kingsborough College - ARE ENTIRELY WRONG!
The first document is the declaration (affidavit) sent to the New York court by the Head of the History department of the Kingsborough College, Prof. Dr Bernard Klein. He was the main organizer (together with Dr. Milan Bulajic) and he chaired the conference. In his statement Dr Klein claims that he “expected that the papers submitted to the College and proceedings of the First Conference would one day be published “and he says “I was quite pleased to learn that the book would finally be published”. He continues:“I spoke with Dr.Schindley and I was also pleased to have a copyright for the Proceeding Book under my department at Kingsborough College “.In the same declaration Dr. Klein also says: “During the years since the 1997 conference, I have spoken with Dr. Bulajic, Dr. Schindley and Petar Makara about the publication of the Proceedings Book and approved the efforts to document the proceedings of the conference in a book“ As for Mosic’s statement that the distribution of the books was forbidden by a court injunction based on the demands of Kingsborough College, the court decision dated Jan 24, 2006 tells something quite different: “The Court grants plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction based on the claims of individual plaintiffs Aleksandar Mosic and Antun Miletic. The Court need not and does not reach the question of whether Memory Film Productions is entitled to a preliminary injunction “” and so on….
The fact is that the SOLE claim of the copyright infringement rests with two individuals, Mosic and Miletic and their claims are the reason behind the temporary injunction. That brings us to the crucial question: How could Mosic determine that the unauthorized publication of his paper of a few pages that he read at the First Conference on Jasenovac, is more important than the testimonies about the horrors of Jasenovac given by TWELVE SURVIVORS - testimonies now banished from further distribution because of HIS suit !???
Mosic is not able to answer this important question, so he has moved away from the copyright issue as the main reason for his being a plaintiff. He now talks only about the quality of the Proceedings Book! He writes: "I continue to insist that the quality of the Proceedings Book is the basic, most important reason for the suit”
However, Mosic has never given any valid evidence for his claims He has not named the historians whose critical opinion he mentions! No reputable historian has joined this frivolous case for copyright infringement. The only two people involved are Mosic, a chemical engineer and a Croatian historian Antun Miletic. Nobody else !!! In his letter dated March 26 to the members of the Executive board of the Jewish Federation, Mosic attaches to the name of Wanda Schindley a derogatory comment aimed at Barry Lituchy and made by a very respected historian and writer Dr. Srdja Trifkovic . In response to one of our letters sent to many important individuals,
Dr Trifkovic wrote: “ An esteemed "Professor" who harasses octogenarians in pursuit of his nefarious objectives is at the moral level of a sewer rat “.(this comment was clearly aimed at Lituchy who is known to lie about his credentials and who uses the title of “professor”).
But in his letter, Mosic writes that there are respectable intellectuals who have “characterized the moral values of Wanda Schindley as those at the level of sewer rats “ To deceitfully pin this characterization now on Wanda Schindley instead of its intended target, Barry Lituchy, is unbelievable even for someone like Mosic !!!
Mosic now complains that our accusations are damaging his health, so he is threatening to take us to court.
Up until now, we have tried to keep this very serious case within our Jewish Federation and to resolve it there. Starting a court case like this would cause much damage because it will publicly reveal the shameful fact that one Jewish man from Serbia is behind the injunction of the Proceedings Book on the First Jasenovac Conference. Several hundreds of thousands Serbs were massacred at Jasenovac.
The consequences of a public court hearing can be avoided by removing A. Mosic from all the functions in our Federation without any further delay...
Thursday, April 13, 2006
DEFENDING THE TRUTH ABOUT JASENOVAC: (Letter No. 5)
DEFENDING THE TRUTH ABOUT JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP IN THE INDEPENDENT STATE OF CROATIA
(Letter No. 5)
This letter is written and addressed to you by three Jewish survivors of the death camp Jasenovac in the Nazi Independent State of Croatia during the Second World War who are still alive in Serbia:
Cadik Danon,
an architect, who escaped from the Jasenovac concentration camp in 1942.
Božo Švarc
a retired colonel of the Yugoslav Army, who escaped from the Jasenovac concentration camp in the same year
and
Josif Erlih
a retired major of the Yugoslav Army, who was held in Jasenovac to the very bitter end and participated in the break out on 22 of April 1945 when the Croat fascist guards started slaughtering all remaining prisoners.
Mošić satanizes Dr. Wanda Schindley
On March 6, 2006, a group of Belgrade Jewish Holocaust survivors asked the President and the Executive Committee of the Jewish Federation to revisit their request that Aleksandar Mosic be impeached and relieved of his position as both President as well as a member of the Memorial Commission of the Federation. This should be done because Mr. Mosic has participated, as a Plaintiff, in a law suit filed in the USA which has stopped the distribution and is jeopardizing the existence of the book, Proceedings of the First International Conference on Jasenovac. The Executive Committee had stopped discussing this issue before because Mr. Mosic mislead them into believing that the law suit was over.
On Sunday, March 26, before his case would have been the subject of a renewed discussion, Mr. Mosic sent a letter to a group of the Executive Committee members. In that letter he defends himself - but he also attacks. The long text contains a history of Jasenovac Research Institute (JRI) in which its CEO, Mr. Lituchy, the instigator of the law suit against the Proceedings book, is presented in the best light. We will not discuss this purported history as we were not participants, but neither was Mr. Mosic who obviously presents it as he was told to.
In his long letter, containing 15 points about the Proceedings book and the law suit, Mosic attacks the publisher/editor of the book under injunction Dr. Wanda Schindley who, after the other editor, Mr. Petar Makara settled the case, continues to fight for the destiny of the Proceedings book. She became the main target of Mosic's attack because she informed Federation's President, Mr. A. Singer, the same night of the earlier mentioned meeting, on February 26, that the law suit was not over and she pleaded that the discussion about Mr. Mosic should continue.
Mosic tells many lies about Dr. Schindley. He says that Dr. Schindley left Jasenovac Research Institute in 2002 «under shameless circumstances», and that in total she lost three law suits against Kingsborough College and JRI etc. None of which are true!!!
Mosic presents Wanda Schindley as a private individual who without permission, published the Proceedings book with the sole intention of making a profit for her company - Dallas Publishing. But we know Dr. Schindley as a public spirited individual and an activist who tirelessly fights for the truth about Jasenovac. She was a participant in the Third International Conference on Jasenovac in Jerusalem and a participant in the Symposium on Jasenovac in Belgrade in 2005. She participated in both - at her own expense. She published an English translation of the book «Witness to Jasenovac's Hell» by Ilija Ivanovic, again at her own expense. She did it after realizing that other publishers and distributors were ignoring the book. Before publishing that book in 2002 her company published only University curriculum books such as «A Guide for Teachers of English, with Key Elements» and similar material...
She is the only employee of her company. Thanks to the financial contributions of a few people she managed to publish the Jasenovac Conference Proceedings book in 1,031 copies. Out of this number 851 books were given free to libraries, churches, synagogues - to researchers of history, to universities and to Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. The nominal price of the book was put as low as $20 even though it is a 400 pages book with hard cover. The insignificant amount of money obtained through sales of the book could not even cover the expense of shipping the books to all major cities in USA and a few cities in Canada. Since she covers her expenses only from her salary as a university lecturer she was not able to pay lawyers to defend her in the current law suit - so she is bravely defending herself «pro se».
So much then about the «profiteering» motives of Wanda Schindley.
http://jasenovac.blogspot.com/
(Letter No. 5)
This letter is written and addressed to you by three Jewish survivors of the death camp Jasenovac in the Nazi Independent State of Croatia during the Second World War who are still alive in Serbia:
Cadik Danon,
an architect, who escaped from the Jasenovac concentration camp in 1942.
Božo Švarc
a retired colonel of the Yugoslav Army, who escaped from the Jasenovac concentration camp in the same year
and
Josif Erlih
a retired major of the Yugoslav Army, who was held in Jasenovac to the very bitter end and participated in the break out on 22 of April 1945 when the Croat fascist guards started slaughtering all remaining prisoners.
Mošić satanizes Dr. Wanda Schindley
On March 6, 2006, a group of Belgrade Jewish Holocaust survivors asked the President and the Executive Committee of the Jewish Federation to revisit their request that Aleksandar Mosic be impeached and relieved of his position as both President as well as a member of the Memorial Commission of the Federation. This should be done because Mr. Mosic has participated, as a Plaintiff, in a law suit filed in the USA which has stopped the distribution and is jeopardizing the existence of the book, Proceedings of the First International Conference on Jasenovac. The Executive Committee had stopped discussing this issue before because Mr. Mosic mislead them into believing that the law suit was over.
On Sunday, March 26, before his case would have been the subject of a renewed discussion, Mr. Mosic sent a letter to a group of the Executive Committee members. In that letter he defends himself - but he also attacks. The long text contains a history of Jasenovac Research Institute (JRI) in which its CEO, Mr. Lituchy, the instigator of the law suit against the Proceedings book, is presented in the best light. We will not discuss this purported history as we were not participants, but neither was Mr. Mosic who obviously presents it as he was told to.
In his long letter, containing 15 points about the Proceedings book and the law suit, Mosic attacks the publisher/editor of the book under injunction Dr. Wanda Schindley who, after the other editor, Mr. Petar Makara settled the case, continues to fight for the destiny of the Proceedings book. She became the main target of Mosic's attack because she informed Federation's President, Mr. A. Singer, the same night of the earlier mentioned meeting, on February 26, that the law suit was not over and she pleaded that the discussion about Mr. Mosic should continue.
Mosic tells many lies about Dr. Schindley. He says that Dr. Schindley left Jasenovac Research Institute in 2002 «under shameless circumstances», and that in total she lost three law suits against Kingsborough College and JRI etc. None of which are true!!!
Mosic presents Wanda Schindley as a private individual who without permission, published the Proceedings book with the sole intention of making a profit for her company - Dallas Publishing. But we know Dr. Schindley as a public spirited individual and an activist who tirelessly fights for the truth about Jasenovac. She was a participant in the Third International Conference on Jasenovac in Jerusalem and a participant in the Symposium on Jasenovac in Belgrade in 2005. She participated in both - at her own expense. She published an English translation of the book «Witness to Jasenovac's Hell» by Ilija Ivanovic, again at her own expense. She did it after realizing that other publishers and distributors were ignoring the book. Before publishing that book in 2002 her company published only University curriculum books such as «A Guide for Teachers of English, with Key Elements» and similar material...
She is the only employee of her company. Thanks to the financial contributions of a few people she managed to publish the Jasenovac Conference Proceedings book in 1,031 copies. Out of this number 851 books were given free to libraries, churches, synagogues - to researchers of history, to universities and to Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. The nominal price of the book was put as low as $20 even though it is a 400 pages book with hard cover. The insignificant amount of money obtained through sales of the book could not even cover the expense of shipping the books to all major cities in USA and a few cities in Canada. Since she covers her expenses only from her salary as a university lecturer she was not able to pay lawyers to defend her in the current law suit - so she is bravely defending herself «pro se».
So much then about the «profiteering» motives of Wanda Schindley.
http://jasenovac.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
DEFENDING THE TRUTH ABOUT JASENOVAC: Letter No. 4
The fourth letter of Cadik Danon, Josif Erlih and Bozo Svarc.
DEFENDING THE TRUTH ABOUT JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP IN THE INDEPENDENT STATE OF CROATIA
(Letter No. 4)
This letter is written and addressed to you by three Jewish survivors of the death camp Jasenovac in the Nazi Independent State of Croatia during the Second World War who are still alive in Serbia:
Cadik Danon,
the architect, who escaped from the Jasenovac concentration camp in 1942
Bozo Svarc
the retired colonel of the Yugoslav Army, who escaped from the Jasenovac concentration camp in the same year
and
Josif Erlih
the retired major of the Yugoslav Army, who was held in Jasenovac to the very bitter end and participated in the break out on 22 of April 1945 when the Croat fascist guards started slaughtering all remaining prisoners
BARRY LITUCHY CAUGHT IN PIRACY
Jasenovac Research Institute under the leadership of Barry Lituchy sued Wanda Schindley and Petar Makara who published a book on the death camp Jasenovac - the Proceedings book of the First International Conference on Jasenovac held at Kingsborough College in 1997. In the court documents, Lituchy and three other plaintiffs constantly refer to it as a pirated book.
They still have to prove this in court. In the meantime, on March 3rd 2006. they (JRI under B. Lituchy) were accused in the periodical of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Serbia and Montenegro of having pirated a capital book on the Holocaust in the former Yugoslavia published by the Jewish Federation in 1952 in Belgrade.
JRI and B. Lituchy canceled what they were preparing to do. In the second issue of their periodical "Jasenovac Research Institute, Vol I, No 2. Summer 2005," on page 9, they proudly announced their “publication of one of the most important studies of the Holocaust in Yugoslavia - "The Crimes of the Fascist Occupants and Their Collaborators Against Jews in Yugoslavia" known simply as “The Black Book”. ("Zlocini fasistickih okupatora i nijihovih saradnika protiv Jevreja u Jugoslaviji").” They added: “It is generally agreed that this work is one of the two most important books on the Jewish dimension of the Holocaust in Yugoslavia ever produced….”
They did not mention that this book was published by the Federation of Jewish Communities in Yugoslavia many years ago and that the editor was Dr Zdenko Loewentahl. They failed to mention that also when they described the contents of the book. They only mentioned that this study first appeared 53 years ago in an edition officially listed as 4000 copies. . The reader is not informed about who created and published this book.
About the pirated book, they say: ”This edition, with a new preface by Aleksandar Mosic, Barry Lituchy and Danko Vasovic in English and Serbian, consists of three parts: the main text is 195 pages in Serbian; there is a very comprehensive English language summary of 53 pages; plus another 44 pages offer photographs and original documents with English and Serbian captions.”
Of all the listed components of the newly announced book, only the preface is new. Everything else existed already. It was not done by the JRI but by Belgrade Jews after the war.
Were you fooled by this JRI ad?
No, this edition contains basically NOTHING more than the original. Other than the short preface, the only thing new is that the cover of the "new edition" now sports a new owner: "Jasenovac Research Institute, Belgrade - New York 2005."
Everything else was simply photo-copied, including all the photographs and 53-page summary in English.
What we have here is the most blatant violation of copyright one can find. JRI simply copied without first obtaining any right to do so. They took other people's work, doing no work of their own, and stamped all with their own name.
Here is the reaction of the owner of the original work - the Jewish Federation. In their periodical "Bilten, Savez Jevrejskih Opstina Srbije i Crne Gore, broj 3," Belgrade, March 2006, on page 3, Mr. Aleksandar Lebl writes:
PIRATED EDITION OF THE "BLACK BOOK"
“A supposed new edition of a book, originally printed in 1952 and belonging to the Jewish Federation of Yugoslavia, appeared in United States…..The publishers of this edition is Jasenovac Research Institute, and the preface was written by Aleksandar Mosic, Barry Lituchy and Danko R. Vasovic.
“This begs a few questions. First, the Jewish Federation was not informed that there was an intent to reprint this book, let alone were we asked for a permission for such. If they asked us, we would have told them that the Jewish History Museum, in agreement with the President of the Jewish Federation, made a decision to publish a new edition after a most careful review of the original was finished…..
“Our Federation has to decide whether and what action to undertake against the publishers of this pirated edition.
“Second. The publisher claims that the original edition of the "Black Book" which consisted of 4000 copies was not distributed and that only less than 1000 copies were distributed…..The truth is though that the entire edition was distributed, a good part of it abroad, including to Yugoslav diplomatic and consular representatives. The book was hard to find for quite some time, and that was the reason the Jewish History Museum decided to print a new edition….
“Third. There is no organization with a name such as Jasenovac Research Institute registered in Belgrade, as is printed on the cover of the pirated book.
“Fourth. In a JRI periodical they say about the book, "It is an extraordinary work that will be reissued by the JRI in the future and will become the standard text in libraries, universities and Holocaust institutions around the world that it was always meant to be". That is simply NOT true. The "Black Book" has been for a long time now the standard text which can be found in libraries, universities and Holocaust institutions throughout the world.”
(End translation of Aleksandar Lebl’s article)
We do not have many comments to add. What Lituchy and Mosic did is evident: they stole other people’s work and tried hard to conceal it.
Tribute to the Proceedings book
The periodical of the Yugoslav immigrants into Israel “Most” (The Bridge) informed in the April 2006 issue its readers of the publication of the Proceedings book on the First International Conference on the Jasenovac concentration camp. It said that Dr Wanda Schindley and Petar Makara created the book on the basis of the testimonies of twelve survivors of the camp and reports made by about 20 active participants in the Conference.
“These large materials remained unprocessed until 2005 when Wanda Schindley and Petar Makara undertook this work and publish the whole material.”
“Most” reproduced the statement made by the 12 former inmates:
“The twelve of us who by miracle survived Jasenovac and were still alive in October of 1997 described at the Conference the horrors which we suffered or witnessed…..We are thankful to the authors for what they did. By publishing the Proceedings of the Conference, they helped in spreading the truth about Jasenovac, which had met many obstacles almost everywhere except in Israel”.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Lawyer's letter
Belgrade, March 20th 2006
Barry Lituchy
Jasenovac Research Institute
P.O. Box 10-0674
Brooklyn, New York 11210
CC: David A. Gottfried
CC: United States District Court 50 West 34th Street, Suite 11A13 Eastern District of New York
New York, New York 10001 Civil Action No. 05-CV-3735
(RJD/KAM)
CC: Milo Yelisijevich
Publishing Company “Serbian Classics”
234 E. 14th Street, Apt. 1B
New York, New York 10003
CC: Memory Film Productions
CC: Mr Joseph W. Friendly Mr. Joseph W. Friendly, Producer 203 West 107th Street, # 8A
P.O. Box 250560 Columbia Station New York, New York 10025
New York, New York 10025
Dear Mr. Lituchy,
As duly empowered to act on behalf of participants to the Jasenovac Conference, held in October 1997 at the Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, New York, esteemed Mr. Bozo Svarc, Mr. Cadik Danon, Mr. Dragoljub Ackovic, Mr. Josip Erlih, Ms. Mara Vejnovic and Ms. Dr Eta Najfeld, we are, hereby informing you on the following:
All the above named Gentlemen/Ladies did explicitly revoke their non-exclusive license to publish speeches they delivered in October 1997 at Kingsborough Community College about their experiences at the Jasenovac concentration camp, once granted to the Jasenovac Research Institute. Therefore, we must strongly object to the announced release of the book containing the speeches for which you are not authorized, or have any right regarding the speeches, whatsoever.
Moreover, we are also pointing out that none of the above named Gentlemen/Ladies granted permission or any license to Memory Film Productions and/or JRI to use any film footage delivering the speeches in any film they created or intended to create. To the extent that you, Memory Film Productions and/or JRI has created a film which includes such footage, we are requesting that you immediately cease and desist from reproducing, selling, distributing or broadcasting that film.
Further, regarding your Claim for Copyright Infringement against Wanda Schindley a/k/a Dallas Publishing and Kingsborough Community College, we are, hereby, informing you that the esteemed Mr. Bozo Svarc, Mr. Cadik Danon, Mr. Dragoljub Ackovic, Mr. Josip Erlih, Ms. Mara Vejnovic and Ms. Dr Eta Najfeld granted non-exclusive license to Wanda Schindley a/k/a Dallas Publishing and Kingsborough Community College to publish the speeches they delivered at the Conference in October 1997 at Kingsborough Community College. To support Mrs. Schindley’s Motion for Dismissal, we shall provide the Court with the affidavits of the above named Gentlemen/Ladies certifying that the licenses given to the JRI were revoked, and that only Wanda Schindley a/k/a Dallas Publishing and Kingsborough Community College are licensed to publish the speeches delivered at the Conference in 1997.
We fell obligated to emphasize that, in case you proceed with the release of the book disregarding our clients’ free will to rightfully dispose their consent for publication of their own speeches, we shall be forced to take all legal actions at our disposal to protect our clients rights.
In case you do not inform us on the matter within reasonable period of five days, we shall understand that you did not find our arguments acceptable; therefore, we shall proceed with the said actions.
Expecting your prompt response on the matter,
Sincerely,
Marina Gacic, attorney at law
Barry Lituchy
Jasenovac Research Institute
P.O. Box 10-0674
Brooklyn, New York 11210
CC: David A. Gottfried
CC: United States District Court 50 West 34th Street, Suite 11A13 Eastern District of New York
New York, New York 10001 Civil Action No. 05-CV-3735
(RJD/KAM)
CC: Milo Yelisijevich
Publishing Company “Serbian Classics”
234 E. 14th Street, Apt. 1B
New York, New York 10003
CC: Memory Film Productions
CC: Mr Joseph W. Friendly Mr. Joseph W. Friendly, Producer 203 West 107th Street, # 8A
P.O. Box 250560 Columbia Station New York, New York 10025
New York, New York 10025
Dear Mr. Lituchy,
As duly empowered to act on behalf of participants to the Jasenovac Conference, held in October 1997 at the Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, New York, esteemed Mr. Bozo Svarc, Mr. Cadik Danon, Mr. Dragoljub Ackovic, Mr. Josip Erlih, Ms. Mara Vejnovic and Ms. Dr Eta Najfeld, we are, hereby informing you on the following:
All the above named Gentlemen/Ladies did explicitly revoke their non-exclusive license to publish speeches they delivered in October 1997 at Kingsborough Community College about their experiences at the Jasenovac concentration camp, once granted to the Jasenovac Research Institute. Therefore, we must strongly object to the announced release of the book containing the speeches for which you are not authorized, or have any right regarding the speeches, whatsoever.
Moreover, we are also pointing out that none of the above named Gentlemen/Ladies granted permission or any license to Memory Film Productions and/or JRI to use any film footage delivering the speeches in any film they created or intended to create. To the extent that you, Memory Film Productions and/or JRI has created a film which includes such footage, we are requesting that you immediately cease and desist from reproducing, selling, distributing or broadcasting that film.
Further, regarding your Claim for Copyright Infringement against Wanda Schindley a/k/a Dallas Publishing and Kingsborough Community College, we are, hereby, informing you that the esteemed Mr. Bozo Svarc, Mr. Cadik Danon, Mr. Dragoljub Ackovic, Mr. Josip Erlih, Ms. Mara Vejnovic and Ms. Dr Eta Najfeld granted non-exclusive license to Wanda Schindley a/k/a Dallas Publishing and Kingsborough Community College to publish the speeches they delivered at the Conference in October 1997 at Kingsborough Community College. To support Mrs. Schindley’s Motion for Dismissal, we shall provide the Court with the affidavits of the above named Gentlemen/Ladies certifying that the licenses given to the JRI were revoked, and that only Wanda Schindley a/k/a Dallas Publishing and Kingsborough Community College are licensed to publish the speeches delivered at the Conference in 1997.
We fell obligated to emphasize that, in case you proceed with the release of the book disregarding our clients’ free will to rightfully dispose their consent for publication of their own speeches, we shall be forced to take all legal actions at our disposal to protect our clients rights.
In case you do not inform us on the matter within reasonable period of five days, we shall understand that you did not find our arguments acceptable; therefore, we shall proceed with the said actions.
Expecting your prompt response on the matter,
Sincerely,
Marina Gacic, attorney at law
Monday, March 20, 2006
Jasenovac Concentration camp ( Letter No. 3 )
DEFENDING THE TRUTH ABOUT JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP IN THE INDEPENDENT STATE OF CROATIA
(Letter No. 3)
This letter is written and addressed to you by three Jewish survivors of the death camp Jasenovac in the Nazi Independent State of Croatia during the Second World War who are still alive in Serbia:
Cadik Danon,
the architect, who escaped from the Jasenovac concentration camp in 1942
Bozo Svarc
the retired colonel of the Yugoslav Army, who escaped from the Jasenovac concentration camp in the same year
and
Josif Erlih
the retired major of the Yugoslav Army, who was held in Jasenovac to the very bitter end and participated in the break out on 22 of April 1945 when the Croat fascist guards started slaughtering all remaining prisoners
LITUCHY WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION
The three of us did not grant releases for our testimonies to be publish in the book on the Conference on the Croatian death camp Jasenovac which Mr Barry Lituchy promised now again, eight years since it was held at Kings borough Community College in New York. The information, that we gave such releases last year, spread by Mr Milo Jelisijevic on 11 March 2006 is totally unfounded.
Mr Jelisijevic, a publisher and member of the Board of the Jasenovac Research Institute (JRI), should have known that the releases we gave in 2003 were recalled in 2005 because the CEO of JRI, Mr Lituchy, initiated a court action against Dr Wanda Schindley and Mr Petar Makara, who created the Proceedings of the Conference published in April of 2005.
We were outraged by the lawsuit filed by Mr Lituchy and his cronies Messers Friendly, Mosic and Miletic against the first book, which contained the testimonies of us and nine other Jasenovac survivors. It was offered to the American and English speaking public, as the book on this subject promised by Mr Lituchy was not published. We could not accept that the first book on the Conference be banned by a lawsuit because of alleged copyright breach (and really because of the hurt pride of a lecturer who did not want to or was not able to produce it). Consequently, we withdrew the authorizations given to Mr Lituchy in 2003 to use our testimonies. We have lost trust in him and welcomed the book on the Conference made by people more diligent and more eager to spread the truth about Jasenovac.
Messers Lituchy and Jelisijevic will receive the notification of our lawyers in Belgrade that they do not have the permission to use our testimonies and contributions made by several other active participants of the Conference. If they do not respect our prohibition, they will face legal consequences.
Mr Lituchy could have avoided the danger of being sued if he had accepted the advice given by another plaintiff, Mr Joseph Friendly, to approve the existence of two parallel books on the Conference. Considering that Mr Lituchy’s death threat against the videographer of the Conference Mr Bibic put the plaintiffs on the defensive, Mr Friendly suggested softening of the settlement terms. He made this suggestion in his letter sent on January 13, 2006 to Mr Lituchy’s lawyer, Mr Kaplan. By exchange of releases, the existence of two books on the same subject would have been accepted by both sides. Mr Lituchy did not approve this suggestion and continued the litigation. While Mr Friendly was brave enough to propose a conciliatory solution, he was not brave enough to cancel his suit and quit the litigation.
The parallel existence of two books on the same event would expose them to the judgment of the reviewers and the public and prevent Mr Lituchy and his cronies from affirming that they undertook the court action against Dr Schindley and Mr Makara because the book they produced is of such bad quality that it should be banned. Only Nazis and the Gulag masters took the right to destroy books while alleging poor quality or wrong content.
In an e-mail letter circulated on 09/03/06, Mr Lituchy called the Proceedings book on the Jasenovac conference a “falsification of history book†which “is factually inaccurate†without presenting any proof for his offensive allegations. He did not analyse anything; he just threw a stream of slanders against people he hates for the work they did and he failed to do. He wrote that the presentations by the conference participants “were badly misinterpreted in the book†so that most of them “asked that the book not be distributed†- and he did not mentioned any name of such presenters unhappy with this “amateurish and error filled bookâ€Â. He only stated that “the book misidentifies some 20 different presenters,†and they all remained anonymous except Mr Eli Rosenbaumâ€Â. And even this gentleman did not point to concrete errors, excusing himself that he had no time to write letters.
We would not suppose that the Proceedings book is free of errors, but Mr Lituchy failed to demonstrate the “falsifications, errors, outright lies†contained in the denounced book. In the manner of the Nazi propagandist Goebels, he repeated the same accusations, convinced that after many repetitions, they would be accepted as true.
Mr Milo Jelisijevic proceeded in the same way in his letter sent to the president of the Jewish Federation in Serbia, Mr Aca Singer, on 25 of February 2006. He wrote that Mr . Makara and Dr. Schindley offered a book distorting and misinterpreting the writing s of almost every historian who attended the conference – Huttenbach, Rosenbaum, Berenbaum, Simpson, Tom Popovich and Charles Allen, and he did not offer any proof for what he affirmed. In the best of Nazi tradition, he declared that the book made by Makara and Schindley “will vanish.â€Â
The same letter of Mr Jelisijevic affirmed that the three of us “Messrs. Svarc, Erlih and Danon have nothing to complain about.†He added, “Their testimonies will appear in the authorized version of “Jasenovac and the Holocaust in Yugoslavia†which will be published by the JRI in April of this year. They signed releases last yearâ€Â.
This is an outright lie. If Lituchy and Jelisijevic, contrary to our will, publish our testimonies, they will have to confront us in court.
The Editor-in-chief of the newsletter of the JRI, Mr Aleksandar Mosic, surpassed Messrs. Lituchy and Jelisijevic in explaining how the poor and damaging quality of the Proceedings book prompted their court action. He alleged that the book was negatively assessed by experts as a dilettante product and did not name any such expert. Mosic declared that the Proceedings book contains incorrect information but was able to name only one presenter who complained, the already mentioned Mr Eli Rosenbaum. However, even Mr Rosenbaum, as we said, did not offer examples of misinterpretation of his presentation.
In fact, in a letter of 26 February 06, Mr Mosic for the first time retreated from his previous statements that the breach of his copyright motivated his law suit. In a reversal, he attributed his motivation to the poor quality of the Proceedings book. He affirmed that his signature on the suit was “a dam against dilettantism which caused enormous damage†to the truth about Jasenovac. So, in the line with Mr Lituchy and Mr Jelisijevic, he wielded the Nazi torch of destruction of a book
In the recent past, Mr Lituchy scared many people by resorting to law suits. Now, his last one against Schindley and Makara is proving to be a boomerang. He lost his job as part-time lecturer at the Kingsborough Community College, which he sued also for breach of copyright in respect to the Proceeding book; he had to substitute his two expensive Madison Avenue lawyers with a single one from a more modest part of New York, as by January 2006 he spent already $100.000 on his court action; and he and his cronies are denied by the Jewish survivors and many Conference participants the right to publish their contributions.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
The latest smear
Dear Petar,Regarding the latest smear from the Lituchy camp to Dr. Trifkovic and copied to others, I think it is appropriate to set the record straight on at least some of the accusations:1. There is no dispute between you and me. I love you like a brother. You have been there to support me and my work for almost six years and called to check on me at times when I was dealing with incredible pain, especially the pain of working with the Jasenovac testimony and not being able to take a warm shower without thinking of those poor Jews and Serbs who were transfered from the Italian zone and tied up in the freezing rain to die as icicles or be hungry without wondering how those poor Serbs and Jews could survive hunger pains for months or years and eat without feeling guilty to have food. When my friends here didn't understand my commitment, you were always there for me, and nothing could change my feelings for you. To compare a (nonexistent) dispute with you "on the one hand" to one with Lituchy "on the other" is blasphemous.2. While Mr. Yelesiyevich claims to be "intimately acquainted with the details of the law suit," he seems to have been sadly misinformed, and I hope his research is more careful in other respects. Certainly, he should understand that the law provides for a process in which to "prove" allegations, and identifying the Jasenovac book as "pirated" is completely inappropriate. At the end of this litigation, we will see what is indeed "pirated."3. Since the Jewish Federaton in Belgrade was misinformed as to the nature of the settlement and tricked (with a breach of any confidentiality agreement) into not discussing the Mosic affair, we will wait to see further developments. Mr. Yelesiyevich's letter to the Federation contained many inaccuracies--such as(a.) the book was "unauthorized," when the only person to "authorize" the publication was Dr. Klein, the main organizer and host of the conference (I have his declaration);(b.) that Mr. Almuli offered a "bribe" to Mosic (he infact offered money for "permission" to include the papers in this and future editions so as to maintain a complete record); Mr. Almuli is a journalist who has spent decades on Holocaust studies and now in his 86th year still fights to tell the truth about genocide in Independent Croatia and has studied carefully the legal documents in this case;(c.) that we have "lost" the case (Mr. Yelesiyevich seems to assume himself judge and jury; the case is far from over, and your settlement clears the way for me to fight my way, unemcumbered by your lawyers);(d.) that the book will "vanish"--a most disturbing suggestion (the book is in Yad Vashem, Hebrew University, and many other university, public, church and synagogue libraries and with Survivors and researchers, and undistributed books are in protected storage);(e.) that JRI will produce a "definitive version" this April (It can hardly be complete as most of those few who signed "non-exclusive" permission to JRI have withdrawn even that and filed for copyrights, and a long list of people will certainly be missing from JRI's book, IF it ever appears;(f.) the book "distorted and misrepresented" presenters (evidently, Mr. Yelesiyevich does not understand the difference between a transcript of proceedings and an analytical work);(g.) that the book bears a "fraudulent" copyright (again, refer to Dr. Klein's declaration);(h.) that Milan Bulajic is inaccurately identified as an organizer of the conference (see page 165 of the book on which Dr. Klein identifies him (Lituchy is identiifed as a "coordinator," and he identified himself as an "assistant coordinator" in a Jan. 18, 1998 letter but apparently has now promoted himself to the "organizer"; and(i.) that we "forged" signatures (see the investigative report of the Survivors' Association; the letter of Tisma, Danon, Erlih, and Svarc; the letters of Danon, Erlih, and Svarc, etc.4. The allegation that you "admitted wrongdoing" is over the top, but I certainly hope, if Lituchy did get the $10,000 instead of his lawyers, that he hangs on to it as part of payment to me when I win the multi-million $ libel suit I have filed against him. Mr. Lituchy's "generous" settlement terms did not come close to attoning for the mental stress, health problems, money, and time he has cost so many with his second lawsuit against those who try to tell the truth about Jasenovac. Further, to set the record straight, I don't have a lawyer because I won't be held hostage by a Lituchy suit (such as the 1st one against 4 good men) in which I have to capitulate because I can't pay tens of thousands to an attorney. Further, the suggestion that "no judge wants to deal with a pro se defendant who refused good settlement terms" ignores the foundation of the justice system in which ALL litigants are entitled to pursue truth and justice. In fact, I would encourage anyone else against whom a frivolous lawsuit is filed to go "pro se."5. Regarding the allegation that I "created a scene" at St. Sava's church last Saturday, for the record, I was showing on my computer a 10-minute video of Jasenovac survivors to 6-7 friends (among them a man whose grandmother perished in Jasenovac and had asked to see the video) when a certain Barry supporter appeared in the otherwise empty room upstairs in the hall and demanded to know why I was there (in "her" church), accused me of being sued by CUNY/Kingsborough college (I told her I was not sued but that Barry had sued Kingsborough), and demanded to know who invited me. As I recall, most of those present plead guilty, after which she attacked them and demanded to know whether they were members of "her" church. I told her I had devoted most of my time over the five-plus years to telling the truth without ever soliciting or accepting money and that I have always before been welcomed by Serbs. She proceeded to insult further the others and me and claimed to be the largest donor to "her" church. Downstairs, she continued to desparage us and approached me again as I was leaving, at which time I told her she was most "inappropriate." Outside, as I left, she followed me and again asked me why I was there and (as the priest had called the donors to the church "angels") asked me if I were an "angel." I responded that I never took money from poor Serbs in a pyramid scheme and enriched myself with their loss, so perhaps I was an "angel."6. As for according "respect" to Mr. Lituchy, as neither Yugoslav Serb nor Jew nor Roma but American of German descent, I am very much aware that I must prove myself and EARN respect through my work. Likewise, I "accord" respect to others based on their character (honesty, strength of endurance, selfless service to others, etc.), their efforts that are not self-aggrandizing whether it be in the fields or the library, and the product of their work. As for permission from Mr. Lituchy, I do not assume that he "owns" the 1997 conference or story of Jasenovac to keep buried or expose as he wishes. As for "abid(ing) by his decisions"--well, malo sutra.As for Lituchy winning both lawsuits, he might have managed to wrest JRI from the hands of the original incorporator and gag the defendants while telling all kinds of stories about the affair himself and by costing them tens of thousands in legal fees, and he managed to get a settlement from you (again because of tens of thousands in legal fees but which works well for both of us) on a suit you should never have been on but for which your attorneys failed to file a motion to dismiss you, but this is far from over (unless Lituchy, in addition to other things, resigns from JRI and gives it back to the original incorporator--as the Survivors have made clear he does not represent their interests and, therefore, should not solicit money in their names), and it is absolutely false that "Lituchy won both times."7. As for Mr. Yelesiyevich's comments about Mr. Danon, Mr. Erlih, and Mr. Svarc, I will restrain myself and say only that these men, after their incredible suffering at Jasenovac, came to New York to tell their stories (and had to be hungry again as a certain check that was expedited from Canada to feed them was not cashed until a couple of months later) and, after 7.5 years when their stories were finally published, had their stories suppressed by injunction for the past six months. They have every right to want the only complete record of the conference that could ever be produced legally freed from injunction. They and others, knowing that some people would never give their permission to Lituchy after the horrible and costly messes he has caused and that the record of their testimony is satisfactory to them, have withdrawn their permission to Lituchy/JRI. They simply want their testimonies to be distributed instead of sitting in storage and have every right to demand it. Further, as you and I agreed, the most important and precious part of the 1997 conference was the testimony of the Survivors (eight of whom have died since the conference--seven without even seeing the book). We put every word they spoke in addition to every written word they submitted AND the transcripts of Vladimir Bibic's post-conference interviews in the FRONT of the book. While Lituchy claims the survivors were not the focus of the Conference, for us, they WERE. No words of any historian, whether informed or uninformed, could possibly be as important as the testimonies of those brave heroes, and I pray they will live to see their words freed from Lituchy's "gag."Best,wanda
Jasenovac concentration camp (Letter No 2)
DEFENDING THE TRUTH ABOUT JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP IN THE INDEPENDENT STATE OF CROATIA
(Letter No. 2)
This letter is written and addressed to you by three Jewish survivors of the death camp Jasenovac in the Nazi Independent State of Croatia during the Second World War who are still alive in Serbia:
Cadik Danon,
the architect, who escaped from the Jasenovac concentration camp in 1942
Bozo Svarc
the retired colonel of the Yugoslav Army, who escaped from the Jasenovac concentration camp in the same year
and
Josif Erlih
the retired major of the Yugoslav Army, who was held in Jasenovac to the very bitter end and participated in the break out on 22 of April 1945 when the Croat fascist guards started slaughtering all remaining prisoners
LITUCHY HARRASING JEWISH SURVIVORS
Mr Barry Lituchy offered a distorted picture of the meeting of the Jewish Federation in Serbia which considered the proposal of 25 survivors to remove from his post Mr Aleksandar Mosic because he took part in the lawsuit against the creators of the Proceedings of the First International Conference on Jasenovac in 1997. His whole letter sent on 26 of February was devoted to this question.
He said that "the motion to sanction certain members of the Jasenovac Research Institute and to endorse and distribute the unauthorised and enjoined book was completely defeated" without mentioning that the case was dropped only after defective information was provided to the meeting and that Mr. Makara, the Federation and our group of survivors were told that the plaintiffs would not sign unless the Federation drops the case.
Mr. Lituchy said also that our letter to Mr. Mosic that was discussed at the meeting of the Executive Committee of Federation was a "bogus letter of slander ostensibly signed by 25 Jewish Holocaust Survivors" and that it contained many "scurrilous and libellous allegations."
This "bogus" letter was signed by the three of us Jasenovac survivors and 22 others:
Andreja Preger, PhD, outstanding pianist and retired professor at the Academy of Music in Belgrade. He joined the partisans, while his father and uncle were killed at the very entrance of the Jasenovac camp;
Jasa Almuli, past President of the Jewish Community in Belgrade and Honorary Chairman of the Belgrade Chapter of Holocaust survivors and war veterans. He video taped 170 testimonies of survivors in Yugoslavia and Greece and published two books on the Holocaust;
Hana Atijas Vlacic from Sarajevo, who survived Croat Ustasha prison and German camps and now lives in Australia;
Eva Timar, a chemical engineer who survived Auschwitz;
Eva Cavcic, PhD, who survived several Hungarian and German prisons and after the war became a chemical scientist;
Luci Mevarah Petrovicsurvived by escaping to Albania under the Italian control and was over 30 years the secretary of the Federation of the Jewish Communities in former Yugoslavia;
Haim Mile Pinkas, a successful businessman from Belgrade who survived in Italian interment and recently financed the publication of books countering testimonies of Yugoslav survivors (published by the Jewish Historic Museum in Belgrade);
Moric Levi, who with his close family hid in Belgrade and Serbia during the occupation;
Boza Rafajlovic who, after escaping from Italian internment, joined Tito's partisans and, as an outstanding journalist, covered most visits of the late Yugoslav president to non-aligned countries;
Ana Somlo, journalist and writer, Editor in Chief of the magazine "Most" published for the Yugoslav immigrants in Israel;
Ivan Ninic, a publisher and designer from Novi Sad living now in Israel with his wife Ana Somlo;
Rafael Abravanel, jumped out from the train transporting Jewish victims from the town of Pirot in Serbia to Treblinka and reached Palestine before the end of the war. He lives in the kibbutz Shaar Haamakim near Haifa;
Greta Davidovic Terzic, MD, survived thanks to interment in Italian controlled territory and lives now in France;
Flora Sokolovic, who was hiding with her mother and granny in the house of Serbian friends during three years in Belgrade;
Vida Jankovic, PhD, retired professor of English at the University of Belgrade where she was during the occupation;
Sarina Lili Alkalaj, who fled from Belgrade to Pirot and later escaped from the death train to Macedonia and Albania and joined the partisans;
Dr. Marko Anaf, was hiding for three years in an attic bunker with his mother in her house in Belgrade and was professor of biology at the Medical School of the University of Belgrade;
Matilda Baruh, was hiding during the occupation in Belgrade together with her brother and mother;
Natalija Danon, the Serbian widow of the general Misha Danon who escaped from the Jasenovac camp;
Lily Alpar, was hiding in Budapest;
Djordje Alpar, her husband, was first hiding in Dalmatia and afterwards joined Tito's partisans;
Dragutin Mladenovic, also a Serb and friend of our community and husband of the late Ljiljana Ivanisevic, who as a child was imprisoned in the Jasenovac camp. He expressed his desire to join our action and we consented.
These persons signed or endorsed by emails our letter urging Mr. Mosic to disassociate himself from the court action against the creators of the book of the Proceedings of the Jasenovac conference. The letter with their signatures is kept by Mrs. Luci Mevorah Petrovic, retired Secretary of the Jewish Federation. Her address is Kicevska 1a, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia.
Thus far about the "bogus" character of our letter.
As for the allegation of Mr. Lituchy that it contains "scurrilous and libelous allegations" we shall reproduce here the letter, and you judge for yourself.
______________________________________________________________
Mr. Aleksandar Mosic
Ilije Garasanina 33
B e l g r a d e
We Jews who sign this Letter and who survived the camp of Jasenovac and the Nazi genocide during World War Two are calling on you Mr Mosic to withdraw your lawsuit against Petar Makara and Wanda Schindley, lodged because of alleged breach of your copyright of your paper in the Proceedings of the First International Conference on Jasenovac, held in New York in 1997.
The lawsuit of 5th of August 2005 lodged by you together with Barry Lituchy, Joe Friendly, Memory Films Productions and the Jasenovac Research Institute (JRI), under the control of Barry Lituchy, halted in 2005.the distribution of this book and caused damage to the spreading of the truth about Jasenovac. According to the initial request of the plaintiffs, the already distributed copies of the books should be retrieved. Now they ask for the permanent injunction of the undistributed copies and high payments for damages by the defendants to the plaintiffs. This means that some people in the world would make profit from the Jasenovac victims. The lawsuit is already filling the pockets of lawyers with money which should be dedicated to the cause of Jasenovac.
This book on Jasenovac was sent to Yad Vashem and Hebrew University in Jerusalem, which both thanked the editors. The book was also sent to many public libraries, universities and schools and Holocaust Centres. One thousand copies of the book were printed, and they were mostly donated without charge. The price of the book was set at $20.00, although it has 400 pages and hard cover, in order to make it accessible to as wide a range of readers as possible.
We do not wish to enter into details of the legal aspects of he court proceedings regarding this book. However, we can’t accept the assertions of the plaintiffs that the publishing of this book interfered with their plans to publish it. They did not do it during a full seven years, and now when others published the book, they are preventing its distribution. We think that it hurts the memory of Jasenovac victims and victims in all the other camps where Jews, Serbs and Roma were destroyed. We were informed that the accused creators of he book did not use the video series of the plaintiffs and that they used papers submitted and raw footage which was given to them for use without any restrictions by the videographer Vladimir Bibic, who declined to join the lawsuit. He considers that his raw footage should be freely accessible to everybody.
We wish to draw your attention to your actions in his lawsuit as a Jew and President of the Memorial Commission of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Serbia and Montenegro. In the Conference of 1997, you delivered a short report on the archive and memorial material in the Jewish Historic Museum in Belgrade. You handed your report paper to the organizers of the conference with the assumption that they could use it without restrictions. Only in 2005 did you protect it with copyright in the USA. Is it morally correct to request copyright for data derived from the Jewish Historic Museum in Belgrade, which among the duties has the preservation and spreading of information on crimes committed against Jews during World War Two? You joined the lawsuit against the creators of the book, affirming that your copyright was breached as they did not ask you for permission to publish your report in the book.
And we ask you now: When did we Jewish survivors of Serbia and Yugoslavia cover our reports on the Shoa with copyrights and limit the spreading of what we remember and tell? We believe that you made a mistake by registering subsequently your report of 1997 and joining the lawsuit. You had to bear in mind that you were President of the Memorial Commission of the Jewish Federation in Serbia and Montenegro. Instead of spreading the truth about Jasenovac, you are curtailing it.
We have some additional questions. Do you receive any payment, and how much, as Editor in Chief of the Newsletter of the Jasenovac Research Institute? If you receive it, we ask you if you really think that it is in order to get financial reward from the source whose money is ear marked for the research of crimes committed against our nation.
We were informed by the Belgrade-based Association of the former concentration camp inmates that you not only joined the lawsuit against the creators of the book on the First International Conference on Jasenovac but that you undertook an action to dissuade the Jasenovac survivors from giving support to the accused. You visited Mara Vejnovic while she was ill, without announcement, and talked her into withdrawing the support she gave to the editors of the book. However, she informed the Association of former camp inmates about it and, assisted by them, she cancelled what you extracted from her.
We appeal to you as a long-time Jewish activist to reconsider your actions in this case and to inform us and the court in New York about the withdrawal of your suit. The accused creators of the Proceedings informed us that you should also give them permanent permission to use your report and that they will pay you for it. If you stick to your suit, we intend to inform the Jewish public opinion of our country about your actions and to request from the President and the Executive Committee of our Federation to decide whether you could continue to hold the position of President of the Memorial Commission.
In addressing you, we are motivated by the need of our small and vulnerable community to preserve its aims and traditions: mutual solidarity of its members and solidarity with Jews in the world and Israel; defence and spreading of the truth about the Holocaust, the struggle against anti-Semitism, preservation of the Jewish identity, and much more. Your suit because of some copyright does not fit into these objectives. However, we believe that you would like to remain an activist of our community with the head raised high.
The following persons who know the subject of this court litigation agreed with and supported the content of this letter and signed it:
(The letter ended with list of names and signatures which we already quoted)
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This letter to Mr. Mosic represented our effort to save the Jasenovac book and induce him to return to his previous honourable role in our Federation. Our effort failed, and he stuck to some interests tied up with his loyalty to Mr. Lituchy.
We are outraged by Lituchy's writing. We wander how dare he try to discredit and harass the Jewish survivors in Serbia.
We learned that Mr. Lituchy was dismissed by Kingsborough College where he was a lecturer without a PhD. We hope that this will be the beginning of his downfall from the mountain of abuses, harassment, and intimidation which he climbed to reach and preserve the top position of CEO of Jasenovac Research Institute. We agree that he should leave this position and hand over the JRI to its founders and honest Jewish, Serbian and American researchers.
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