The International Commission for the Truth on Jasenovac, Mainaschaff SOCIAL-PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE PHENOMENON OF GENOCIDE (IN THE LIGHT OF THE DEFINITIONISM-THEORY) „Usurpation of the power over definitions with intention to acquire a monopoly over the same, on the part of the centers of political power, embodied in governmental or para-governmental structures is the most efficient instrument of the said centers of political powers, and simultaneously, the engine of both segmentary and total development of the human society. The growth of the political power is, as experience teaches us, directly proportional to the decline in adherence to the ethical imperatives of the human society. Thus the usurpation of power over

Ithaca College, New York A SURVIVING CHILD CAMP INMATE – PERSONAL MEMORY AND TRANSFERRED EXPERIENCE This paper is describing a personal of a 62 years old man who lost most of his family in the Holocaust at the hands of Croatians (many died in the Jadovno Complex including Slana and Karlobag). The parents of the only child who lost their loved one immigrated to Israel after the war but never talked about the experience and so the home was filled with a heavy atmosphere of guilt, shame and deep sadness. It was not until November 2005 that an inner calling directed the author to find us what happened.  This was a time

Institute for Contemporary History, Belgrade CAMP GOSPIĆ IN CROATIAN NATIONAL AND RACIAL POLICY IN 1941 Favourable political and military circumstance after 27 March and aggression of Germany and its allies on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia enabled the Independent State of Croatia to be created and political programmes of extreme Croatian nationalism to be fulfilled. Although formally it was within Italian sphere of interest, the Ustasha state, with its creation and ideological profile was much closer to German Nazi rather than Italian fascist model. The new state structure was established surprisingly quickly because it was founded on the basis of the civil servants of the Croatian Banovina who, after a public

University of Cagliari  ITALIAN OCCUPATION IN TUNISIA AND YUGOSLAVIA: DIFFERENCES AND SIMILITUDE IN THE RELATIONS WITH THE JEWS During my studies I have investigated on the role of Jews in the community of Tunisia and Algeria analyzing their activities to understand their position in the colonial society. Tunisia was a world inhabited by Muslim Arabs, but dominated by French, a world in which differences existed between French and Arabs (in their behaviour towards the Jews), but also existed internal differences in the religious groups (Muslims, Christians, and Jews). During my lecture, I would like to emphasize on the impact that Vichy’s racial laws had on Tunisian society, focusing also on

Russian Holocaust Center, Moscow NAZI “DIVIDE ET IMPERA”: COMPARING SOVIET AND YUGOSLAV CASES IN 1941 This paper seeks to elucidate similarities and dissimilarities between Nazi Germany’s policies vs. Yugoslavia and Soviet Union after these territories fell under German rule. Her policies reflected, to some extent a classical colonial approach of “divide et impera” and involved different treatment of various national groups comprising multinational states. However, the Germans considerably radicalized these policies with regard to non-Jewish population of Yugoslavia and USSR, which came largely as a result of the lifting of restrains on Nazi treatment of civilians and partisans. In both countries, German authorities suppressed the biggest nation (Serbs and Russians). At

RAI World, RAI, Rim ITALIAN SOURCES – DOCUMENTS ON MASSACRE OF SERBS IN DALMATIA, LIKA AND KNINSKA KRAJINA (1941 – 1943) The role of Italian Army on the territory of the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia has been unjustly neglected even in the Italian historiography itself. The entry, deployment and actions of 2nd Army in Istria and Dalmatia – ordered and executed on 11 April, 1941 at 12:00pm – deserves more detailed study, because in that sector Italian units found themselves in a complex wartime and political situation unlike history has ever seen. The Italians carefully monitored and recorded the events and by that gave support to many complex historical truths

Jasenovac Board of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Jerusalem MEMOIRS, AUTOBIOGRAPHIES AND BIOGRAPHIES OF MEMBERS OF ALLIED MISSIONS IN OCCUPIED YUGOSLAVIA AS SOURCES OF RESEARCH OF 1941 AND JADOVNO The rich literature of diaries or autobiographical texts of members of Allied missions in the occupied Yugoslavia, as well as their biographies, has almost been unused in terms of research of sufferings in the Second World War in Yugoslavia. Allied missions were present in Yugoslavia already in late 1941 and had the opportunity, whether personally or through testimonies and documents, to witness the terrible suffering of some structures of the Yugoslav population during the war. Because of that their testimonies are invaluable.

Simon Wiesenthal Center, Jerusalem IMPORTANCE OF THE POST-HOLOCAUST JUSTICE IN THE EAST EUROPE AFTER THE FALL OF COMMUNISM The lecture will deal with the significance of prosecuting Nazi war criminals and collaborators in post-Communist Europe. It will describe the unique aspects of the collaboration with the Third Reich in the countries which were part of the Soviet Union or under Communist rule from the end of World War II until 1989, emphasizing the lethal nature of such collaboration, which unlike the situation elsewhere in Europe, included active participation in mass murder. Bringing these war criminals to justice has proven to be one of the most difficult, if not the most difficult, of the six

University of Vienna WAR OF REMEMBERANCE IN POST-YUGOSLAV REGION Without any doubt we could say that individuals and groups use memories of past for present purposes, they remember only those events that they could fit into their own image of themselves or the group. So already in 1980-ties in (Western) Europe, after decades of suppression, the Holocaust became the focus of memories of the Second World War. The extermination of European Jews is considered to be a common experience from which Europe learned and created new structures in order to prevent something like that from happening in the future. At the same time in Eastern and Southeast Europe the history

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem MEMORY AS IDEOLOGY IN CHANGING SOCIETIES  -„Never again“ as a paradigm for Holocaust Memory – „It is the manipulation of history rather than emotion through architecture of monuments that is troubling. When history is not understood it is more likely to be repeated.“ The modern researchers continuously attempt to bridge between the history and collective memories of the Jews and the non-Jewish communities, coexistent in a common landscape. This is not an easy task, mainly for the fundamental differences between history and memory: whereas history attempts to reconstruct the past on the basis of all the data at hand by means of critical analysis, memory

Union of Jewish Communities of Serbia, Belgrade MEMORY IS NOT ENOUGH MEMORY: There is individual, the personal memory primarily of all those who survived concentration and death camps. Unfortunately, already tomorrow none of the surviving camp inmates are going to be amongst us. There is also a public memory such as international remembrance days, when a state remembers victims and terrible crimes once a year (through speeches made by representatives of authorities). That public memorialisation is in fact a part of political obligations of states. States submit annual reports about those memorial days saying that they have successfully marked them and by that fulfilled their obligation. To public memorialisation also