The Croatian NDH state archives turned over to Israel

On the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the Republic of Croatia the national expectations were that all the questions pertinent  to the 1990-1995 defensive war and independence were to be resolved. However, the reality proved to be different as Serbia, the aggressor, failed to follow the path of reconciliation; not only it failed to provide  the information on the „dissapeared“ Croatian nationals, not only it did not nulify its law on prosecuting the Croatian veterans, not only it did not repudiate its laws regarding the arrogant  theft of Croatian language, not only  it did not repudiate its law of cultural theft of Croatian Dubrovnik literature, not only  it failed to pay  the war reparations, but today, in 2022, it turned over to the state of Israel the complete archives dating back to NDH government of WWII.

The official sources of the defense ministry of Serbia formally announced a meeting held between  the  vice-president of the Serbian government and minister of defense  Nebojša Stefanović and  Israel emissary in Belgrade Jahel Vilanom on 7 February. The emissary was presented  “ a hard disc containing 162,000 pages of  digital copies of  military  information pertaining  to the persecution of Jews by the NDH government during WWII.”

Specifically, these archive  materials were removed from the territory of Republic of Croatia by the  yugoslav government  prior to the 1990 war. In 2006 the government of Croatia requested the return of these materials in addition to more than 700  data groups and collections from about 50 institutions, primarily the Archive of Yugoslavia, the Federal secretariat of foreign affairs, the Military archive, administrative branches of the Yugoslav People's Army as well as the  Yugoslav video documentation section.  All of these were illegally plundered by the Serbian dominated government in Belgrade.

The evident intent of Serbia, in this one of many incidents, is to create disent and discredit Croatia vis a vis Israel because of the NDH politics during WWII. However, at its core, the incident uncovers Serbian nostalgia for the loss of Yugoslavia and with it the control of Greater Serbia as well. Serbia's aggression against its neighbors displayed a behavior witnessed by the international community as a  genocidal nation systemically committing war crimes by its military, paramilitary and civilian government. Slobodan Milosevic was recognized as international pariah and his war generals Mladic and Karadic were internationally sentenced for war crimes. The cult of the invincible Serbian soldier was demolished in successive battles by the Croatian military; it is inconceivable that Serbia will be able to  forget  the final defeats inflicted by  the operation Storm. Thus, a source of political resentment and hatred.

The turning over of the Croatian historical archives  to a third country uncovers a high dose of political primitivism and hatred toward the Croatian people. At the same time, this action indicates that  Serbia-at this point in time- does not work toward peace and building  better relations with its neighbors. Such political imaturity is worrisome to the point that under the current negotiating conditions,  Serbia should not, and will not, be seriously considered as a viable  candidate to join the culture of the western democratic society of the European Union.

Equally important, it must be emphasized that the top Croatian political leadership has sent, at best, a flaccid note of protest in reaction to this demeaning Serbian created incident. The main portion of the Croatian protest note reads : “ It is a conclusion of the Croatia side that, to differentiate the ongoing Serbian behavior to this one incident,  there are no barriers on the part of Serbia which will exacerbate  the current process of the AnnexD Agreement  regarding the questions of Serbian succession (into the EEUU), as it  pertains to the archives”.(sic!)

This narrative contained in the protest note of the Croatian ministry  of external and European affairs forwarded to the Serbian ministry, is a soft,  unclear, double meaning comment which can hardly be called a “note of protest”. What it does instead, is to clearly indicate the intellectual limitation of the Croatian diplomacy. That, in itself, should be deeply worrisome. Such note is simply another one in a series of many which display a continuation of the Croatian-Yugoslav diplomatic school which was displayed by actions of Budimir Loncar who actively lobbied for sanctions AGAINST Croatia and for prohibition of sale of armaments to Croatia at the time when the very existence of the nation was jeopardized by Serbian aggression. The same type of diplomacy continued by the actions of traitor Stipe Mesic who at the end of the war turned over the military archives ….to the British!