https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5706-5679
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ABSTRACT
The article focuses on two monuments in Croatia that commemorate the Second World War and the Holocaust. The first is the Stone Flower monument (Kameni cvet/cvijet) located at the Jasenovac Memorial Site, designed by Bogdan Bogdanović and unveiled in 1966. The second is the Tangible Absence monument (Prisutna odsutnost/Memorial to Victims of the Holocaust and the Ustasha Regime), unveiled 77 years after the war’s end. It is located in the centre of Zagreb and was created by sculptor Dalibor Stošić and architect Krešimir Rogina. Both of these monuments are representative of how the official memory regarding the events of the Second World War is changing in Croatia. They reflect the internal social and political changes occurring within the territory of former Yugoslavia (now in this case Croatia). The main objectives of this text are to provide a comprehensive description of the monument creation process, highlight the meanings conveyed by these monuments, and to address the question of how new official forms of commemoration in Croatia respond to the global processes of reimagining Holocaust memory.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Additional Information
This article is part of the project: The Dissonant Heritage: Witnesses, Bystanders and Observers in the Croatian Cultural Memory of WWII (grant U1U/P01/NO/52.81).
Notes
1 In the field of literature, these include the works of Jergović, novels by Daša Drndić and, to a lesser extent, Nebojša Lujanović. Among recent films, particularly notable is Dnevnik Diane Budisavljević (2019, directed by Dana Budisavljević). Non-governmental organisations, such as Documenta – Centre for Dealing with the Past (active since 2006), are important bodies striving to preserve the memory of the Holocaust through their work.
2 Refer to, among others, the articles mentioned in the text. The fundamental monograph on Jasenovac was authored by Ivo Goldstein (Goldstein Citation2018).
3 See e.g., Aleksandra Szczepan's text analysing the character of the Holocaust in East-Central Europe (Szczepan Citation2022). The Holocaust is also invoked as a benchmark for human rights abuses, slavery, apartheid, colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. See e.g., Gilbert and Alba Citation2019.
4 The literature on this subject is extremely extensive. The issue of transformations in the culture of memory in post-Yugoslav countries is present in many positions referenced in the article (on Croatian context see: Goldstein and Hutinec Citation2007, 187–2009; Banjeglav Citation2018, 91–161).
5 Different spheres of influence, as well as the differences in local circumstances and degrees of participation in the war, underscore the importance of taking regional socio-political conditions into account in any study of the Second World War, not limited solely to the context of the former Yugoslavian countries. First of all, this approach allows for the inclusion of necessary nuance in the image of war in general, representing the multi-layered nature of the experience, and, secondly, it reflects the borderland memory which is typical for these areas and the natural hybridity of their residents’ identities. See, for example, memory conflicts in the northern Adriatic analysed by Natka Badurina (Badurina Citation2023).
6 Both sides of the argument try to either exaggerate or downplay the number of victims for their own purposes (Croatian nationalists minimise the number to 40,000, while some Serbian historiographers write about as many as 700,000 victims).
7 It should be added at this point that, in 1952, the Jewish Federation presented a plan to erect five monuments commemorating “Jewish victims of fascism and the fallen fighters” (Spomenik jevrejskim žrtvama fašizma i palim borcima) in several cities in Yugoslavia: Sarajevo, Belgrade, Novi Sad, Zagreb and Đakovo (on the site of a former camp). The unveiling of these monuments was attended by representatives of both Jewish and non-Jewish organisations. However, in many cases the monuments themselves were placed far from public view. For more on their physical and symbolic isolation, see Emil Kerenji’s work (Kerenji Citation2011).
8 To read more on the dynamics of post-war changes in the entities deciding how Jasenovac was to be commemorated, see Karge Citation2014, 196–216.
9 More about the history of the camp, see https://documenta.hr/koncentracijski-logor-kampor-1942-1943/
10 Only a thin brochure with photographs and a thirty-page text about the history of the site were prepared for the unveiling of the monument. It was not until 1986 that Antun Miletić published a comprehensive collection of documents about the camp entitled Concentration Camp (Koncentracioni logor). Haike Karge considers Nataša Mataušić’s Citation2003 book to be the first serious scholarly monograph on the subject (Karge Citation2014, 188–189).
11 “While the ‘official’ Yugoslav historiography of the Second World War centred on heroic acts of Communist partisan resilience against Nazi occupiers, it simultaneously aimed to smooth over the (memory of the) ethnic tension that had so violently disrupted this multinational country during the war” (Vervaet Citation2014, 213).
12 The cognitive function pertains to the type of human knowledge embodied by monuments, typically aligned with the preferences of political elites, and the knowledge that users possess regarding the representation of monuments (Bellentani and Panico Citation2016, 33).
13 Contrary to the message promoted by the authorities, the Second World War in Yugoslavia was not only about the fight against fascism. The communist partisans were opposed not only by the Croatian Ustasha, but also by Serbian Chetnik units (nationally-minded, favouring the monarchist system).
14 In the context of the Europeanization of memory, the exhibition is being analysed by Ljiljana Radonic (Radonic Citation2011, 355–367; see also Pejaković Citation2012).
15 Exceptions include artistic projects dealing with the Holocaust carried out in Zagreb. See the 2014 work by Zlatko Kopljar titled K-19, built out of bricks that originally came from the Jasenovac concentration camp, https://zlatkokopljar.com/portfolio/78/
16 The fact that the suitcase is a relatively common symbol for the Holocaust is also indirectly evidenced by the design of a monument, as well as the poster that announced its creation, that was to be erected in Zbąszyń, Greater Poland, to commemorate the group of Polish Jews who were interned there and had been first deported from Germany in 1938 (Atrwińska Citation2017, 197–218).
17 The objections concerned the original concept of the monument. According to Zoričić Tabaković, the monument in Zagreb should be dedicated to the Croatian Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust. The chosen location also had its opponents (Grozdanić Citation2022).
18 The findings of the research on emotional and cognitive responses after exposure to the Jasenovac monument representation are presented in Pavlaković and Perak Citation2017, 268-304.
19 The dislocation of Croatian guilt on the basis of analysed literary texts is presented in the work of Maciej Czerwiński (Czerwiński Citation2021, 279–293).
20 Another hopeful sign is the fact that a project aiming to reopen a post-Yugoslavian exhibition commemorating the fate of 20,000 people who were transported to KL Auschwitz-Birkenau from the territories of Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia has been restarted. The exhibition, which had remained closed since 2009, is located on the first floor of block 17 at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. The closing of the exhibition and the circumstances thereof were discussed in detail by Jelena Subotić (Citation2019). Subotić’s article was an immediate impetus for a private initiative, led by Mirna Herman of the Herman Foundation, that aims to revive the project. The Herman Foundation is funding the design and curatorial concept of the joint permanent exhibition. A team of historians is working on the final version of the exhibition script - a historical narrative written by historians from six states (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Slovenia and Serbia), while Daniel Libeskind is responsible for the exhibition’s visual design and Henri Lustiger Thaler was appointed as its curator. The whole process is coordinated and facilitated by UNESCO. According to Mirna Herman (according to correspondence of 18 July, 2023), “it is very difficult to say when the opening will take place but we are aiming [for] 2026.”
21 The Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) was the primary Nazi agency responsible for looting Jewish-owned cultural valuables and plundering libraries, archives, and Judaica in Nazi-occupied countries.