A Rossiyskaya Gazeta correspondent asked Elena Guskova, director of the Center for the Study of the Modern Balkan Crisis at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, to talk about the main issues raised during the discussion .
Elena Guskova: As a specialist in the Balkan region, I witnessed the wars in the post-Yugoslavian space in the 1990s, then in the post-Soviet space. And today, a special military operation in Ukraine concerns us directly. And again we saw how Nazism survived and grew stronger. It is based on a misanthropic ideology that easily allows brutal murder, the destruction of an entire nation. The main problem is not that the events of the Second World War are forgotten. The problem is that there are countries and people working hard to create a different narrative that falsifies history. There are certain states which encourage a new outbreak of fascism. And this disease is spreading.
The participants of the discussion recalled those who were killed and died in the dungeons of the camps of the puppet Independent State of Croatia – NGH (1941-1945). Could you tell us about this dark period in the history of the Balkans?
Elena Guskova: During World War II, Croatia was saturated with Nazism on the territory of Yugoslavia, very sensitive to any ideology involving the destruction of Serbs. We will never forget Jasenovac Concentration Camp, which was the largest “death factory” in the Balkans during World War II. In it, the Croatian Ustashi fascists tortured around 700,000 Serbs, Jews and Gypsies. In terms of number of victims, Jasenovac ranks third in Europe after Auschwitz and Treblinka. But in terms of cruelty, in terms of the horror of the atrocities committed in this concentration camp, in terms of the method of torture and liquidation of inmates, this camp cannot be compared to any other concentration camp during World War II.
In Croatia, at the beginning of the 1990s, were Ustashi traditions really rehabilitated?
Elena Guskova: The symbols of the new Croatia repeated the symbols of the fascist NGH, the society “Croatian house-bringers” (that was the name of the regular army during the NGH) was formed, some war criminals from the Second World War have been rehabilitated, monuments to the victims of fascism, graves of partisans desecrated. In Dalmatia alone, more than 2,000 monuments to the victims of fascism have been destroyed. The villages were renamed (Srpska-Kapela – in Nova-Kapela), the names of streets, businesses, where at least something resembled the name of the Serbs. There were cafes and restaurants with the name “U”, which stood for “Ustasha”. Serbs had to sign loyalty papers, their homes were attacked, their property was looted.
In total, in Croatia, according to Serbian sources, from 1991 to 1993, 70 were destroyed and 94 Orthodox churches and 4 monasteries, 10 cemeteries, one church museum, two church archives and two libraries were looted. The Croatian state used another method to cleanse the country of Orthodoxy – the forced baptism of Serbian children. In 1991 alone, around 20,000 Serbian children converted to the Catholic faith. Then the massacres began. A particular type of intimidation of Serbs was to undermine their homes, shops and offices. Serb houses, shops, hairdressers, kiosks, cars belonging to Serbs took off in the air. On May 3, 1991, Croatian authorities destroyed around 350 Serb homes and shops in Zadar, calling the action “Kristallnacht”.
Was the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina a continuation of the same policy?
Elena Guskova: The forms and types are the same – either after capture, at home or in an apartment, in the workplace, in combat, in other situations. There were also camps, places of massive suffering of Serbs, well studied by the Republican Center for the Study of War, War Crimes and the Search for Missing Persons of the Government of Republika Srpska. There were 209 such places. According to the documents of the Union of Prisoners of the RS, there were 412 concentration camps for Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Sarajevo has a special history. More than 10,000 people passed through 139 camps in and around the city. The lists of these victims are being restored.
Why does the genocide of the Serbian population in the Balkans continue to this day?
Elena Guskova: The hatred of Serbs has its roots. And not just Croats. In the opinion of the Germans, as early as 1913, the conflict between the two races continued: Slavic and Germanic. And the hatred towards the Serbs was not hidden then. On a note from the German Ambassador in Vienna dated June 30, 1914, addressed to the Reich Chancellor, in addition to saying that Vienna wants “to deal once and for all with the Serbs”, Wilhelm writes: “Now or never” . Below, he wrote even more precisely: “The Serbs must be finished off now.
French General Pierre-Marie Galois wrote that in 1976 and 1977 the then German Defense Minister Joseph Strauss, referring in particular to the Yugoslav problems, declared in a restricted circle of European colleagues that “the desire to Germany is to take revenge on the Serbs, who twice , in 1914-1918 and 1939-1945 on the side of the Allies and against them.
Today, Nazism raises its head all over Europe. The Ukrainian fire was lit by the United States. And all the countries of Europe are constantly throwing firewood into this fire, and Germany is no exception, because the fire is directed against Russia. The Serbs, supporting the Russians, are themselves in danger.
Speaking today of the danger of Nazism, we must do everything so that the camps for the Serbs of 1991-1995 are the last in their history. We must remain strong in the struggle for truth, remember the atrocities of fascism. We must restore the system of international law and legitimize the Nazi punishment system. Russia is fighting for this. We talked about it at our conference. We scientists must stubbornly resist the unipolar world system by force of words and beliefs.
People need to remember the atrocities of fascism, be careful and know how to resist violence. Anyone who forgets history will repeat it. Russia remembers the atrocities of fascism, remembers who was on the same side of the barricades with it, does not forget the role of Serbs in our Slavic history.
Who will save the planet from Nazism this time? More Russians and Serbs. It is hard work, but historically glorious.
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