Historian Efraim Zuroff condemns front page of Croatian Express magazine: "Fascism rears its ugly face"

Photo: Profimedia/Ognjen Stevanovic / Alamy / Alamy

The Wiesenthal Center Director of Eastern European Affairs and Holocaust historian Dr. Efraim Zuroff has strongly condemned the move of the Croatian weekly Express, that published a photo montage showing Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, future Prime Minister of Italy Giorgia Meloni and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban with Hitler mustaches added to their faces, and put all that under the headline, "Achtung (German for, "attention") Croatia between Three Mini-fascisms."

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"In two recent incidents, Croatian fascism reared its ugly face at home and abroad. This week the Croatian weekly Express published the faces of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, Italian soon-to-be Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban with Hitler mustaches under the headline 'Achtung Croatia between Three Mini-Fascisms'. While these three politicians are indeed right-wing conservatives, to brand them as Nazis is simply a disgusting and unfair description, which is in extremely poor taste and an insult to the victims of the Nazis," a statement reads.

It continues to state that in Australia, "a rowdy crowd of Croatian supporters of the Sydney United football club gave Nazi salutes and sang 'Za Dom Spremni', (For Homeland Ready), the Croatian equivalent of the Nazi salute of 'Sieg Heil' during a 'Welcome to the land' ceremony, which acknowledges the fact that the lands on which the stadium was built originally belonged to the Aborigines."

"Both incidents reflect the deep-seated fascism prevalent in Croatia and among diaspora Croatian communities,” Zuroff said.

"Since the breakup of Yugoslavia and the establishment of the Croatian state, with few exceptions the government has not sufficiently emphasized the criminal nature of the Independent State of Croatia (MDH) and the horrific crimes by the Ustasha movement, which governed the country and sought to destroy the Serb, Jewish, and Roma communities," Zuroff concluded.

(Telegraf.rs)