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.
