“Our commitment must be to remember the victims who perished, respect the survivors still with us, and reaffirm humanity's common aspiration for mutual understanding and justice.”
-- Declaration of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust
Book Presentation
06.04.2016
On 24 March in Zagreb, the Institute Ivo Pilar and Roma National Council presented the book Stradanje Roma u NDH (Suffering of Roma in the Independent State of Croatia).
The book was a collaboration between three authors, Danijel Vojak, Bibijana Papo and Alen Tahiri. The volume consists of Vojak’s introductory study, the transcripts of original documents gathered not only from archival institutions in Croatia but also from those in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, and a bibliography. Documents are divided into 13 thematic units, beginning with documents related to the pre-war status of the Roma in Croatia, but also including those related to the legal basis of the persecution, listing of Roma, deportations to the Jasenovac Concentration Camp, the plunder of their property, the resistance of Roma among others. The last unit is dedicated to oral history and the testimonies before the post-war authorities.
Reviewers Vladimir Geiger, Goran Hutinec, and Zlatko Hasanbegović, who has recenly been appointed as Minister of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, emphasized the importance of the book for improving knowledge of the genocide of the Roma, and for the future research based on the published documents.