When commemorating Holocaust victims on January 27, we should never forget that the Holocaust is part of our Croatian history. It’s crucial to identify the perpetrators – the Ustaše and their collaborators who, under their slogan “For the Homeland – Ready,” killed not only Jews but also Serbs, Roma, Croats, antifascists, and others they deemed worthless in the entity they called the NDH (Independent State of Croatia).
In new history textbooks, we primarily present the victims but also the perpetrators. It is crucial to portray the perpetrators without trivializing them by calling them beasts or monsters. Although there were undoubtedly psychopaths and sadists among them, the majority were “ordinary citizens” who, for various internal and external reasons, embraced the ideology or seized the opportunity presented to them. This is crucial to reflect on, as radicalization happened gradually, and we must draw lessons from it for the present and the future.
Last year, I visited the Auschwitz camp complex for the third time. Each visit revealed more about the depth and complexity of the Holocaust. We know it was a death industry due to the way people were killed and turned to ashes. But last year, I discovered another detail that shocked me. Far from the usual tourist paths, what is visible today is a section with several different types of tanks (shown in the cover photo). This area was a facility where the Nazis produced gas from the camp’s sewage. To clarify further – from the labour section of the camp, which could, at certain times, hold up to 30,000 prisoners simultaneously, their urine and excrement were collected so that even in this regard, the Nazis could benefit. Such was the thoroughness and efficiency of this death industry. This is part of the story we remember each year on January 27.
