Efraim Zuroff: “Jews and Serbs were victims of genocide in Croatia”

b92 has the story:

Director of the Israel office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center Efraim Zuroff says that Jews and Serbs were victims of genocide in the NDH.

The Independent State of Croatia (NDH) was a WW2-era Nazi-allied state led by the Ustasha regime that operated death camps, including Jasenovac.

“Of course genocide happened (in the NDH). Not only against the Jews, but also against the Serbs – and much more than against the Jews,” Zuroff, who is currently visiting Serbia, told the daily Politika.

Commenting on the decision of the Catholic Church to canonize WW2-era Croatian Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac – Zuroff said that leader of the NDH, Ante Pavelic, was one of the biggest mass murderers of the war, “while Stepinac was his priest, his spiritual counsel.”

“What can one say about a man like that. It’s absurd. And what should we think about the Catholic Church, that has in its ranks as a priest one Vjekoslav Lasic, who served mass for Pavelic,” Zuroff has been quoted as saying by the daily, and adding – “Pavelic was one of the biggest mass murderers of the Second World War – and he today deserves to be served mass.”

Zuroff is on a three-day visit to Serbia on the invitation of Labor Minister Aleksandar Vulin. He will on Wednesday take part in a meeting of a commission tasked with determining program concepts and giving proposals for management models for the memorial complex Staro Sajmiste (Old Fairgrounds) in Belgrade.

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