ŠOBIĆ: CROATIAN AUTHORITIES MUST PUNISH VANDALS ON PAG

BANJA LUKA, AUGUST 13 /SRNA/ – Croatian authorities must urgently identify and severely punish the vandals who have damaged for the fourth time a memorial plaque at Slano Cove on the island of Pag, at the site of a former Ustasha camp from the period of the Independent State of Croatia /NDH/, Slobodan Šobić, president of the Association of National Liberation War Veterans /SUBNOR/ of Republika Srpska, told SRNA.

Šobić argued that it was unacceptable for Croatia to allow the memorial plaque at Slano Cove to be damaged for the fourth time, as this, in his view, sends a message, as an EU member, that it has failed to confront its wartime past during the NDH and the Ustasha regime of that period. Šobić said that a new memorial plaque and video surveillance should be installed at the site of the killings on Pag to protect the location from vandals. Dušan Bastašić, president of the "Jadovno 1941" Association from Banja Luka, told SRNA yesterday that the plaque, installed on June 24, had been destroyed for the fourth time. The fourth memorial plaque bore the inscription: "We erect this memorial plaque in memory of the Serb, Jewish and other victims of the Slana and Metajna Ustasha camps, which operated as part of the Gospić-Jadovno-Pag camp complex in the NDH from late June to late August 1941. Descendants of the victims, June 2026." In June 2015, descendants of the victims gathered around the "Jadovno 1941" Association erected and consecrated a cross at the site of the former Slana camp, on a hill between the Serb and Jewish camp sites. The Slana Ustasha camp on the island of Pag, established in 1941, was part of the Gospić-Jadovno-Pag system of Ustasha camps, where Serbs and Jews were subjected to mass killings during the NDH. The Slana camp was established in June 1941 and operated for only about three months before being closed by Italian Fascist forces. It covered an area of about five hectares in a deserted cove near Metajna. Monstrous crimes were committed there against thousands of defenseless men, women and children.