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.

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...