The Resolution, prepared by RAS, the International Serbian Organization, and sponsored by the Chairman of the City Council, is to educate the residents of Washington, D.C. about the holocaust that happened at Jasenovac death camp during WWII.
“This resolution signifies that the Capital City of the United States, home of the US Holocaust Museum, honors the innocent victims of the Ustasha Nazi regime, that their suffering and deaths will not be forgotten, diminished or revised, and that the memory of the perpetrators will also be preserved so that any new attempt to repeat these horrors could be immediately recognized and fought,” said Višeslav Simić, Director of RAS.
Jasenovac, located near Zagreb, Croatia, was the largest concentration camp in the Balkans during WWII. Established in a NAZI puppet state, the so-called Independent State of Croatia, it operated from August 1941 to May 1945. Exterminated were mostly ethnic Serbs, as well as most of the Jewish and Roma communities. It is one of the most important Holocaust sites recognized at both Yad Vashem in Israel, and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.
Five years ago, New York City was the first city in the U.S. to pass a similar resolution. The decision by the Washington D.C. City Council to recognize and commemorate the suffering and memory of the victims of the Ustasha genocide in WWII is especially important at this time of revived revisionist attempts worldwide to diminish or deny the crimes committed against innocent civilians who were declared sub-human because of their ethnic, racial or religious affiliation. It is particularly important because of the current tendencies in the Balkans to transform perpetrators of genocide into innocent victims worthy of international recognition and assistance.
