The Center’s Director for Eastern European Affairs, Dr. Efraim Zuroff, pointed to the unprecedented steps taken last week in Zagreb on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, such as the following:

• a huge banner on the Zagreb Cathedral marking memorial day, which included the verse from Isaiah chapter 56 in which the term Yad Vashem appears
• reciting of Psalms in Hebrew at a ceremony held in front of the cathedral in the presence of the cardinals and both of his bishops
• signs on fountains throughout the city with messages related to Holocaust memory

According to Zuroff:

“The steps initiated by Cardinal Bozanić added an exceptional dimension to the observance of International Holocaust Memorial Day in Zagreb this year and elevated consciousness of the tragedy of European Jewry in an unprecedented manner in the Croatian capital. These steps, as well as the cardinal’s speech, in which he specifically mentioned ‘the horrors of Jasenovac and other camps in Croatia’ are the most effective response to the recent attempts in Croatia to deny or minimize those crimes.”