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 5^th 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) 

______________________________________________________________

 

            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.