Croatian leadership and Jews in the 1990s

Aim: What was the attitude of the first Croatian president Franjo Tuđman and the Croatian leadership towards the Holocaust and the Jewish community in Croatia in the 1990s? Some considered Tuđman a Holocaust denier because of the purportedly controversial parts of his 1989 book Bespuća povijesne zbiljnosti (Wastelands of Historical Reality). The Croatian leadership was accused of minimizing World War II crimes of the Ustasha regime and rehabilitating the World War II Independent State of Croatia.

Findings: The Croatian leadership and the Jewish community maintained good relations in the 1990s. Some prominent Croatian Jews actively advocated for Croatia's international recognition and refuted certain authors' and some Jewish international circles' accusations of antisemitism among Croatian leadership. Jews participated at the highest levels of Croatian government. Democratic changes at the beginning of the 1990s enabled national, religious, political and other freedoms for minorities in Croatia, including the Jewish community. Still, some authors considered Tuđman an anti-Semite and a Holocaust denier. These opinions were partly shaped by quotes from the Wastelands of Historical Reality taken out of context and published by Serbian propagandists. This propaganda successfully shaped the false perception of official antisemitism in Croatia and has contributed to the delay in the establishment of the diplomatic relations between Croatia and Israel for more than five years after Israel had recognized Croatia.
Conclusion: There is no evidence for claims of political antisemitism in Croatia in the 1990s. This article sheds light on this widely manipulated topic and provides a basis for further researchs.

Introduction
The collapse of the Yugoslav communist regime and the ensuing democratic elections in  (Sadkovich, 2006;Sadkovich, 2010a;Sadkovich, 2010b). His work is only the beginning of a serious and thorough analysis of this aspect of F. Tuđman's politics. This article aims to provide an impetus to further research of this topic and F. Tuđman's policy in general.

Antisemitism, Holocaust and postwar Holocaust debate
Antisemitism is the intolerance or hatred of Jews, it has been a phenomenon present from antiquity to the modern age. Sensu stricto, it refers to the modern ideology which emerged in Central Europe at the end of the 19 th century and culminated in the first half of the 20 th century (see Beller, 2007;Vulesica, 2009;Arendt, 2015, for more detail). Most aggressive antisemitism is justifiably associated with Nazi Germany and countries that participated st-open.unist.hr 5 ic relationships with Israel, there was no sign of any antisemitism. Yugoslav dictator Josip Broz Tito repeatedly asked the leadership of the Zagreb Jewish Community to condemn Israel, which the leadership of the Community refused (S. Goldstein, 1998, p. 25). Although assimilation of Croatian Jews began in the second half of the 19 th century (Gross, 1998, pp. 106-126; I. Goldstein, 2004, pp. 17-18), Švob (1997, p. 364), it especially accelerated during communism. Slavko Goldstein (1998, p. 24) claimed that assimilation in Zagreb could be viewed as breaking all their Jewish ties in an attempt to integrate into a wider community -that of Zagreb, Croatia and Yugoslavia. Nevertheless, he stressed that this attitude was shared only by a minority of Zagreb Jews. Goldstein mentioned "dualism" of Jewish identity, although he did not specify whether he was referring to Croatian or Yugoslav identity along with Jewish identity. Similarlto other communist European countries, Yugoslav regime commemorated the Jewish victims of World War II by emphasizing the narrative of the "struggle for national liberation" and "brotherhood and unity" (Kerenji, 2008, p. 182). Examples of this practice are the five monuments erected in 1952 and dedicated to Yugoslav Jewish victims that did not differentiate Jews as Holocaust victims, but referred to them simply as "Jewish victims of fascism" (Kerenji, 2008, p. 183).

Franjo Tuđman and Wastelands of Historical Reality
Just like public discourse in general, the historiography of World War II in communist Yugoslavia was under strict control (see Najbar Agičić, 2013;Bertoša, 2005; I. Goldstein, 2005, for more detail). Postwar extrajudicial mass executions of defeated military and civilians, known as Bleiburg massacres (Jurčević, 2005), could not be discussed, while the number of Jasenovac camp victims was greatly and uncritically exaggerated. Estimates ranged from several thousand to as much as one million victims (Geiger, 2020). Prominent Croatian historian Ivo Banac (1992, p. 68) suggested that in this way some academic circles aspired to "demonize Croatian people".
Among the most distinguished scholars opposing the exaggerations was Yugoslav general and former Partisan fighter Franjo Tuđman. In 1961, F. Tuđman became the head of the newly established Institute for the History of the Worker's Movement of Croatia. The institute studied the history of the Communist party of Croatia, national liberation struggle, socialist revolution, Ustasha movement, and the NDH. F. Tuđman's research focused on the role of Croat resistance to occupiers and the position of Croatian people in the NDH and Ustasha movement (Jareb, 2011, p. 280). His conclusions did not match the official Party interpretation of World War II history of Croatia and Yugoslavia, particularly the number of Jasenovac victims (Sadkovich, 2010a, p. 116). For that, F. Tuđman was expelled from the Communist Party and the Institute in 1967. Sadkovich (2010a, p. 150) claims the reason for F. Tuđman's expulsion was not because of "poor academic work," but due to "deviation from the Party line" and that F. Tuđman was not interested only in "accuracy", but wanted to "remove the burden of war guilt from the shoulders of Croats" (Sadkovich, 2010a, p. 344).
F. Tuđman dealt with the issue of the Jasenovac victims in Wastelands of Historic Reality (also known as Horrors of War). His aim was to dispute the allegation of genocidal nature not only of Croats, but also of any other national, ethnic and religious groups. Some of his interpretations of Yugoslav history were, in fact, a reaction to Serbian nationalist historiography which in communist Yugoslavia did all that was possible to mark Croats as genocidal (Sadkovich, 2010a, pp. 277-278;Banac, 1992, p. 68). During the decade after Tito's death in 1980, Serbian nationalism rose to unprecedented heights. This emboldened some historians to present the Chetniks (Serbian chauvinist collaborationists who committed crimes against Croats and Muslims) in positive light (Ramet, 2005, p. 43) leading to tendencies in Serbia to rehabilitate them (Ramet, 2005, p. 47). Three years before Wastelands, in 1986, the Serbian Academy of Science and Arts published its Memorandum (Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, draft, 1986). The Memorandum promulgated the thesis of assimilation and endangerment of the Serbs in Croatia (Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, draft, 1986, p. 25). About that time, Serbian historian Vasilije Krestić published his claims on the genocidal nature of the entire Croatian nation (Sadkovich, 2010a, 260;I. Goldstein & Hutinec, 2007, p. 192).
In Wastelands, F. Tuđman (1989, p. 98) emphasized that "had the Ustasha crimes been lessened as many times as they [Serbs] have exaggerated them, they would still be utterly atrocious and enormous!" (F. Tuđman, 1989, pp. 20-21). "As we have seen, the entire Jasenovac myth (emphasized in the original) has been orchestrated as if such a genocidal crime had not occurred not only within the framework of World War II, but throughout the entire history" (F. Tuđman, 1989, p. 464). Positing that historic guilt and collective genocidal stigma can be imposed neither on the entire Croat people nor on new generations of Croats, Wastelands deals with genocidal acts from the beginning of written history until the time of finishing the manuscript. Together with the fate of Croats, the book scrutinized the fate of Jews, the hate, discrimination and persecution of the Jewish people through history.
Discussing Jewish victims of the Holocaust, he wrote that "no matter how terrible and widespread, unfortunately they were neither a singular nor an exceptional occurrence in any historical period. There is just a greater historical memory of them than of other genocides against other nations" (F. Tuđman, 1989, p. 143). Emphasizing the significance of Wastelands, Banac (1992, p. 68) called that book "a capital charge against the system of demonization of the Croatian people".

Wastelands Controversy
Controversial parts of the Wastelands include recollections of prisoners of Jasenovac on the role Jews played in the camp. Two were Serbs, Vojislav Prnjatović and Branko Popović.
F. Tuđman took their statements from document collection of the Belgrade historian Antun Miletić (1986Miletić ( -1987. The third was Ante Ciliga, a Croat and member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in the beginning of the 1920s. Ciliga described his one-year stay in Jasenovac in his memoirs Alone Through Europe in War (Ciliga, 1978). According to Prnjatović and Ciliga, Jews had a considerable role in the camp's administration. Prnjatović claimed that three of 25 members of the camp administration were Serbs, while others were Jews (F. Tuđman, 1989, p. 317). Prnjatović thought that Jews, compared to Serbs, had been privileged. According to Prnjatović, "a Jew remains a Jew, even in the Jasenovac camp. In the camp they not only maintained all their flaws, but made them even more visible. Selfishness, cunning, unreliability, stinginess, perfidy and confidentiality are their main features" (Miletić, 1986(Miletić, -1987 tanced himself from this statement, concluding that "Prnjatović's judgment radiates with immoderation, one can even say with an antisemitic view," but he also warned that "some other witnesses made similar claims as well." He referred to Branko Popović who claimed that some Jewish prisoners from the camp administration participated in the killings of other prisoners (F. Tuđman, 1989, p. 318). With the statements of Prnjatović and Popović one had to be careful, seeing that they testified to this in Serbia during the quisling regime of Milan Nedić which was extremely antisemitic (Lebel, 2007, pp. 330-331). According to Sadkovich (2010a, p. 270), F. Tuđman "could not easily dismiss" the testimony of Ciliga.
F. Tuđman's main thesis was that any national, ethnic, or religious group battling for survival can act genocidally towards another nation or group it considers dangerous to its existence (F. Tuđman, 1989, p. 161). F. Tuđman found the main argument for this thesis in the war of Israel and Palestinians. He criticized Israeli politics towards Palestinians, emphasizing the "small historic step from Nazi-fascism to Judeo-Nazism." He referred to the horrific experience of the Holocaust after which Jews carried out "such cruel, genocidal politics that it is rightly christened Judeo-Nazism" [F. Tuđman's emphasis], a term taken from Israeli academic Yeshayahu (Josef) Leibowitz (F. Tuđman, 1989, p. 160). Sadkovich (2010a, pp. 264-265) characterized Wastelands as a "review of people's inhumanity towards people throughout history", whereas by the use of phrase "Judeo-Nazism" and by highlighting Israeli politics towards Palestinians F. Tuđman alluded that even "victims can make others victim," in other words, that no nation is exclusively the aggressor or the victim.  Goldstein, 1989, p. 19). Goldstein resented F. Tuđman for not questioning the credibility of witnesses or the circumstances of testimony on the position of Jews in Jasenovac, while opposing "generalizations about Croatian people" such as the inference that all Croats are responsible for the crimes of the Ustasha. Goldstein implied that F. Tuđman's intention was to justify genocide, and particularly condemned using the phrase "Judeo-Nazism." According to S. Goldstein, the Executive Board of the Jewish Community of Zagreb scrutinized only pages 316 to 318 "which considers as proof for a strong argument for its extremely unfavorable attitude towards this book of dr. F. Tuđman, and also towards the publisher that published it unreservedly" (S. Goldstein, 1989, p. 19). F. Tuđman (1995, p. 693)

resented S. Goldstein
for the open letter for "stamping a mark of antisemitism" on him and "everything that the Publishing house of Matica hrvatska symbolizes" as a Croatian national institution. He described his own book as "historical and philosophical deliberation of genocidal iniquities and violence throughout history" (F. Tuđman, 1995, p. 689), noting that he does not justify any crime, let alone genocide, but he "searches for causes and assumptions for the removal of any iniquities and violence" (F. Tuđman, 1995, p. 695). He also emphasized that he had not given any significant meaning to the testimonies of Prnjatović and Ciliga, stressing his own reservation that he adduced in his book (F. Tuđman, 1995, p. 693).
Ivo and Slavko Goldstein (2001, p. 602) suggest that F. Tuđman did not dissociate himself from Prnjatović's testimony clearly and decisively, thus reducing the responsibility of the Ustasha and blaming the Jews culpability in Jasenovac. I. Goldstein & S. Goldstein (2001, p. 600), hence, placed the book at the very "foundations of Croatian revisionism".

Other Reactions to Franjo Tuđman's Statements in Wastelands
In some international circles F. Tuđman was criticized for alleged Holocaust denial even more severely. Accusations started after he assumed the Croatian presidency in 1990. Atkins (2009, p. 139) called him an antisemite. Some wrote about F. Tuđman's "antisemitic statements" in the Wastelands (Živković, 2000, p. 75). Sadkovich (2010b, p. 11) mentions historian Robert Hayden, who called F. Tuđman a racist and an antisemite. Robert Kaplan evaluated F. Tuđman's book as antisemitic (Sadkovich, 2006, p. 263 (Sadkovich, 2006, p. 263). Sadkovich emphasized that it was not clear how Kaplan was aware of this, since he did not read Croatian and there was no translation of Wastelands until 1996 (Sadkovich, 2006, p. 263).
Katarina Mijatović, who later translated Wastelands into English, responded to Kaplan's article, accusing him of "having quoted F. Tuđman out of context and of having attributed quotes from other sources to him" (Sadkovich, 2006, p. 264). Kaplan responded to Mijatović' s letter, admitting that he had not read the book, but that he took some F. Tuđman's statements from a translation (of questionable credibility) which was also used by some other journalists (Sadkovich, 2006, p. 264). Sadkovich claimed that these journalists read only an "unauthorized ten-page translation" of F. Tuđman's 505-page book (Sadkovich, 2006, p. 265).
Some authors explicitly related F. Tuđman to Nazis. They based their allegations on an unauthorized Belgradian translation of excerpts from F. Tuđman's book. Shortly after Croatia's recognition by the European Community (EC) at the beginning of 1992, journalist Teddy Preuss from the influential newspaper The Jerusalem Post International titled an article on F. Tuđman "Goebbels lives in Zagreb" (Radoš, 2005, p. 144). Other scholars alleged that F. Tuđman himself represented the thesis that Jews carried out the Holocaust (Lobont, 2004;Shafir, 2003;Zuroff, 2005;Starman, 2004). Lobont (2004, p. 458) argued that F. Tuđman intended to "cover up" Pavelić's crimes.
However, errors in his text reveal poor familiarity with the work he criticizes. Examples include the erroneous quoting of the publication year of the Wastelands (1988 instead of the correct 1989) and misnaming Jasenovac as Jasenovać (Lobont, 2004, p. 458). Stern (1993, pp. 39-40) alleges F. Tuđman was a Holocaust denier, among other things, because of his use of the phrase "Judeo-Nazism." Lipstadt (1993, pp. 15, 35)

War Victim Numbers in Wastelands
Some authors resented F. Tuđman because he discussed the number of war victims (Stern, 1993, p. 39;Atkins, 2009, pp. 139-140). F. Tuđman disagreed with the exaggerated number of casualties at Jasenovac which was unsupported by evidence. He estimated that the number of victims was somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000. Because after Serbs, Jews had been the largest group in Jasenovac, his estimate was enough to be accused of Holocaust denial. F. Tuđman (1989, pp. 155-158) pointed out the different estimates of the total number of Holocaust victims ranging from four to six million, in agreement with Stern's references (1993, pp. 66-67). F. Tuđman did not present new estimates of the number of perished European Jews, but only described differences in standard academic publications.
There is no evidence that he tried to diminish the Holocaust. However, reassured by his own research and the conflict with communist authorities, he indicated the difficulties in ascertaining the exact number of casualties in such mass sufferings (Sadkovich, 2010a, pp. 265-266). Table 1 is a partial list of Wastelands detractors. Interestingly, among the eight highly critical authors, only two referenced Wastelands, even though the book was their main argument for accusing F. Tuđman of antisemitism, diminishing of Ustasha crimes, and accusing Jews of perpetrating Holocaust in Jasenovac.

Later edition of Wastelands
To diminish the negative impact of the book, in January 1992 F. Tuđman wrote to Edgar Bronfman, president of the World Jewish Congress. He emphasized his dedication to "re-searching the horrors of iniquities and violence, which in recent history had been done to Jewish people," but some parts of his book "were maliciously interpreted as historical revisionism or antisemitism. As a former antifascist fighter and committed democrat, I deny every such intention" (M. Tuđman, 2015a, pp. 111-116 Wiesel stated that F. Tuđman's presence among Holocaust survivors would be shameful (Birnbaum, 1993). Julienne Eden Bušić, an advisor in the Croatian Embassy to the USA, claims that F. Tuđman arrived to the USA in an atmosphere where "Americans did not have any idea whom to trust, they were all thoroughly confused" (Radoš, 2005, p. 144).

Some claimed that members of the Serbian lobby in Washington had taken quotes from
Wastelands out of context and sent them to numerous diplomatic addresses (Radoš, 2005, pp. 143, 145-146) strengthening the snubbing of F. Tuđman and deepening the misperception of his stance towards Jews (Radoš, 2005, p. 146

Political discourse in Croatia in early 1990s
The breakdown of the one-party regime which had a monopoly on interpretation of World War II and its aftermath enabled free public speaking about historiographic controversies.
Establishment of democracy and Croatian efforts to reorganize Yugoslavia into a confederation (Nazor, 2011, p. 56) were accompanied by public discourse abundant with references to Croatian history. The aim of emphasizing the long tradition of Croatian statehood was to affirm the legitimacy of the new political framework. Similarly to other post-communist countries that referred to pre-communist regimes, some Croatian political parties invoked traditions of the NDH (Cipek, 2011, pp. 13-27;Pavlaković, 2011, pp. 215-238;Radonić, 2011, pp. 355-367;Koren, 2011, pp. 123-156) boosting the allegations that F. Tuđman and his party were attempting to minize Ustasha crimes (I. Goldstein, 2002, p. 76).

Franjo Tuđman and HDZ: politics and statements
To some circles, F. Tuđman was as unaccebtable as a statesman as he was an academic, A critical component of the HDZ platform was the all-Croat national reconciliation (Nazor, 2011, p. 203;Radoš, 2005, pp. 38-42). This idea is still discussed by historians, political scientists, journalists and the public in general. Some consider this policy as a means to overcome and/or avoid ideological conflicts among new Croatian generations given that a significant number of their fathers fought on opposite sides during WWII. The underlying idea is that reconciliation has been achieved through participation of descendants in defense of Croatia against Serbian aggression of 1991-1995 (Barić, 2007, pp. 213-214;Cipek, 2007, p. 20;Nazor, 2011, p. 203). Others interpret it as a futile attempt to reconcile irreconcilable ideologies of fascism and antifascism (Boljkovac, 2009, p. 311;Čulić, 2014, p. 129) which opened the door to rehabilitation of the NDH (Hudelist, 2004, p. 686;Pavlaković, 2009, p. 168;S. Goldstein, 1993, pp. 13-18;I. Goldstein & Hutinec, 2007, p. 195;I. Goldstein & S. Goldstein, 2011, p. 206). Ivo Goldstein (2002, p. 76)  Therefore, the NDH did not only represent the mere whimsy of the Axis powers but it was the outcome of quite specific historical factors" (Programske zasade i ciljevi HDZ, 1990, pp. 9-10).
The statement was ignored in Croatian and international historiography as well as by the public, whereas the speech at the First General Convention was often emphasized out of context (Čulić, 1999, p. 20;I. Goldstein & S. Goldstein, 2011, pp. 299-300;I. Goldstein & Hutinec, 2007, p. 195;I. Goldstein, 2008, p. 777;I. Goldstein & S. Goldstein, 2001, pp. 597, 609). Ivo Goldstein (2008, p. 777) claims that this statement contributed to rehabilitation of NDH and the Ustasha regime "even though F. Tuđman distanced himself from the statement, understanding all the danger that has arisen from it." I. Goldstein (1998, p F. Tuđman emphasized the role and importance of the resistance in Croatia as one of the "strongest antifascist movements in Europe," particularly considering that the National Antifascist Council of National Liberation of Croatia is "the starting point for the constitutional and legal design as well as justification of the establishment of our independent and sovereign and democratic Croatia" (F. Tuđman, 1998, p. 19 Dubrava on the nationality of his wife has been used as another proof of his racism and antisemitism. The statement is often quoted as: "Some claim that my wife is Serbian, but I am happy that she is neither Serbian nor Jewish" (I. Goldstein, 2008, p. 761;I. Goldstein, 2010, p. 222). In their book The Death of Yugoslavia british journalists Laura Silber and Allan Little (1996, p. 75) wrote that Tuđman said "I am grateful to God that my wife is neither Jewish not Serbian". Croatian newspapers did non report the statement immediately after the rally, but Feral Tribune referred to it in 1996 reviewing the book (Hedl, 1996, pp. 38-39

Other Croatian politicians on NDH in the 1990s
Other politicians also opined on the NDH. In an interview to the Croatian newspaper Slobodni tjednik, Marko Veselica, a dissident and prisoner of the communist regime, stated that at the establishment of the NDH Croats strived to achieve an independent state.
However, his Hrvatska demokratska stranka (Croatian Democratic Party) "does not want to identify with any concrete regime" (Tardelli, 1991, p. 54 Croats fought only for a red, white and blue flag (Anonymous, 2013).
Still during the 1990s, talking about the "double Croat victory" in World War II and referring to expectations that Croatian authorities come to Jasenovac and apologize for Ustasha crimes, Mesić said that "we do not have any reason to apologize to anyone" and "we do not have to kneel before anyone" (Anonymous, 2007

Right-wing parties on NDH and Jews
Dobroslav Paraga, president of the Hrvatska stranka prava, (Croatian Party of Rights, HSP) glorified the NDH and Ante Pavelić. He considered Pavelić a reformer of the Croatian state (Klancir, 1991, p. 12). According to Paraga, "some crazy laws were written under German pressure," but "none of those applied in Croatia" (Grakalić, 1991, pp. 20-21). The first general conference of HSP rejected any kind of Yugoslavia and requested the Croatian Parliament to "immediately proclaim the Independent State of Croatia" (Jolić, 1991, pp.3-4). They demanded April 10, the date of proclamation of the NDH in 1941, be proclaimed a state holiday (Jolić, 1991, pp. 3-4). According to the media, at the September 1991 HSP demonstrations titled "Za dom spremni!" (For Homeland Ready!) held in at the main Zagreb square, demonstrators displayed Ustasha iconography (Batušić, 1991, pp. 23-25).
In June 1991, HSP established the party's paramilitary "Hrvatske obrambene snage" (Croatian Defense Forces, HOS). "Hrvatske oružane snage" and abbreviation HOS stand also for the NDH military adopted in 1944. The Ninth Battalion "Rafael Vitez Boban" from Split, a part of HOS, contained the special unit, the "Black Legion" in reference to its WWII NDH namesake (Matošić, 1991, p. 6). Such iconography was used to corroborate the accusations that Croatia is renewing NDH. In October 1991, F. Tuđman stated that the international community's only criticism of Croatia referred to the HOS: "They reproached me in den Haag that we in Croatia have military formations that wear insignia from the last war and that we do not control them. I assured them that we would include those formations into the Croatian Army, and if they refuse, we will disarm them" (Butković, 1991, p. 29).
That same month F. Tuđman signed an executive order prohibiting any political activity in the military (Gregurić, 1998, p. 93). Next month, Paraga was arrested and charged with planning a coup. Although there was no solid evidence for the accusation, his aggressive rhetoric announcing a rally against the president and government provided the ground for the leadership to act. In an interview to Le Figaro in 1992, F. Tuđman was negative about Paraga who aspired "to increase cryptofascist tendencies" (F. Tuđman, 1999, p. 227).
Although HSP tried to rehabilitate certain aspects of the NDH, they did not display any antisemitism. In August 1992, five HSP representatives were elected to the Croatian parlia-ment (Mašić, 2010, p. 71). The rise of the HSP may had been based on of the HOS battlefield successes, but after that, HSP never became a political option worth much attention.
In the mid-1990s, Mladen Schwartz, a Croat of Jewish descent, organized the New Croatian Right. The party and its leader were openly antisemitic. In 1995, the party distributed flyers with "Jews out" written on them. The military prosecutor filed a criminal complaint against spreading racial, national, and religious hate (Zlatković Winter, 1995, p. 339).
Although very vocal, this extreme political party never participated remained marginal and ineffective on Croatian political scene.  (Jureško, 1993, pp. 2-3) and repeated it in 1996 in the "State of the Nation" report. The idea was to commemorate the victims of communism along with the existing monuments to the victims of fascism by "transferring the remains and bones from the discovered caves" and victims of the Croatian War of Independence "so that, for everyone killed in the struggle for a free Croatia, we would set up a memorial stone (or a cross) with their name. In this way, we would pay respect to all the victims and that would be a testimony of reconciliation and truth about all those who perished on their way to an independent and sovereign Croatian state" (Izvješće, 1996, p. 42).

Franjo Tuđman on the Holocaust
The idea symbolized F. Tuđman's policy of national reconciliation. However, S. Goldstein, whose cousins and in-laws perished in Jasenovac, reacted negatively. S. Goldstein sent an open letter to F. Tuđman, warning him of legal action if he did not abandon the plan (S. Goldstein, 1996, p. 4). Others in Croatia also reacted sharply, for example the Union of Antifascist Fighters of Croatia (Šimić, 1996, p. 3) and some Croatian media (Čulić, 1996, pp. 4-6). The Croatian Bishop's Conference expressed understanding of the plan, but warned that some would see in it "an intention to relativize the significance of Jasenovac Mostly former communists referred to the idea as "mixing the bones." In an interview F.
Tuđman explained that "if we want reconciliation, if we came with it to Croatian liberty and democracy, then precisely for that we have to [do it] even in Jasenovac, not to (…) mix the bones of the victims of fascism and communism, but to determine exactly how many people were killed as victims of the NDH, fascism and racial laws, and how many as victims of communism, and for that purpose we would transfer the bones that we have out of the caves to that place" (Hina, 1996, pp. 19-23).

F. Tuđman may have been inspired by the aftermath of the battle of Gettysburg in the
American Civil War when the fallen from both sides were interred together as were the fallen in the Spanish Civil War. The latter was initiated by the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco; the similarity of the idea to Franco's likely contributed to the negative reaction to F. Tuđman's (Hina, 1996, pp. 19-23).
F. Tuđman envisioned three memorial areas, one for Jewish victims of the Ustasha regime, one for Croat victims of the communist regime 1945-1948, and one for Croatian soldiers fallen in the War of Independence (M. Tuđman, 2015d, pp. 143-145, 148-151). The latter would be reminiscent of the Arlington National Cemetery in the USA. Within the memorial to Jews, F. Tuđman intended to build "a small synagogue or another small religious monument." The idea of "mixing bones" was strongly refuted by the President's Office statement (M. Tuđman, 2015d, pp. 143-145, 148-151). Nevertheless, the idea of "mixed bones" even symbolically was also vehemently rejected. In the end, F. Tuđman gave up (M. Tuđman, 2015d, p. 184). According to Mate Granić, the then minister of foreign affairs, F. Tuđman gave up so as not to deteriorate relations with the USA (Granić, 2005, p. 144).

Croatian Jewish community in the 1990s
Perhaps the best way to analyze the attitude of F. Tuđman and the Croatian leadership   Winter, 1995, p. 332). Also, the Union of Jewish Youth

Jewish community in Republic of Croatia
Organizations and Union of Jewish Women were formed (Švob, Brčić & Podgorelec, 1994, pp. 80-81). Government representatives are often present at Jewish commemorations (Hina, 1993, p. 3;Živaković-Kerže, 2006, p. 222). After the fall of communism, public interest in Jewish community increased significantly. Some media became interested in Jewish affairs, spiritual values and heritage. For example, Radio station "Baranja" dedicated a program to Judaism, Jewish history and culture (Živaković-Kerže, 2006, p. 224).

The Greater-Serbian aggression and propaganda against Croatia
The Greater-Serbian aggression on Croatia lasted from mid-1991 to August 1995.
Disregarding the laws and customs of war, the Serbian para-military and military organisations occupied almost one third of Croatia, inflicted large destruction, which resulted in the torture and death of Croatian and other non-Serb civilians (Perković Paloš, 2020, pp. 267-294). The aggression included Serbian propaganda against Croatia, aiming to portray the democratically elected Croatian authorities as antisemitic and Jews as endangered by authorities and the military (Figure 1).  (ICTY, 2002, pp. 12734-12735;Cohen, 1997, p. 186;Radoš, 2005, pp. 143-144).

Serbian attacks on Jewish property in Croatia: a method of special warfare
Croatian press extensively reported on the attack. Government and political parties condemned the terrorists and expressed sympathy to the members of Jewish community (Hina, 1991, p. 4;Gregurić, 1998, p. 51). Center at the corner of Palmotićeva and Amruševa Streets (Ni mrtvima mir, 1991, p. 4).
Slavko Goldstein (1998, p. 25) reported that the government paid for renovation of the damaged building.
The terrorist act by the Yugoslav military counterintelligence service provoked strong reactions of the international community and damaged Croatia's image. On the day of explosion, the Inter-Parliamentary Council of the House of Commons of the British Parliament sent a letter to F. Tuđman, expressing concern about the event and seeking "assurances" from the Croatian president that he would protect the Jewish community in Croatia (M. Tuđman, 2015e, p. 265). F. Tuđman responded that it was a "deliberate provocation" which aimed to accuse the Croatian leadership and people of antisemitism and accordingly dam-

Reactions of the International Council of Christians and Jews
In the first half of November 1991, Yugoslav Ministry of Foreign Affairs passed to the Croatian government a letter from Sigmund Sternberg, chairman of the Executive Board of the International Council of Christians and Jews. The letter stated there was an increase of antisemitism in Yugoslavia and especially in Croatia; Sternberg expressed concern for the position of Jews. He mentioned the explosion at the Jewish sites in Zagreb in support of his claims. He also mentioned that Jewish Community leaders received death threats, and the alleged "denial of the Holocaust" (Sternberg, 1991). With the letter he enclosed the October 21 article by Phil Davidson of the London Independent that accuses Croatian leadership of increased antisemitism. Davidson wrote from the Serbian town of Kragujevac about a "crisis meeting" held by Jewish leaders in Belgrade where they unanimously expressed concern because of the "parallels between the Nazi and pro-Nazi massacres of 50 years ago and the unease of Jews in Croatia under the strongly nationalist regime in the breakaway republic today" (Davidson, 1991). The author of the article was obviously  (Cohen, 1997, pp. 173-174). Davidson took Mandić at her word that "those in power in Croatia now are largely the same as during the Nazi era" and "in some cases, they are exactly the same people, now in their seventies and back from exile under the Communists. In other cases, they are children of the Ustashe." He claimed F. Tuđman would not dare touch the Jews now when they have their own state and that F. Tuđman "has prepared an atmosphere similar to that at the start of the Second World War and the fact is that many of the Croatian groups are out of his control" (Davidson, 1991). Davidson provided no evidence for his claims.
Three days after the arrival of the Sternberg letter, Lea Bauman, member of the Zagreb Jewish Community and official in Croatian Ministry of Information refuted Davidson's claims: "As a Jew, I am afraid of Serbian aggression against Croatia, not of Croats in Croatia," and continued that "it does not matter if one is Croatian, Hungarian, Czech or Jewish, as long as he is treading on Croatian soil where the Serbian army wishes to plant the garden of Greater Serbia" (Bauman, 1991). As Davidson wrote the article in Serbia, Bauman invited him to Croatia to talk to Darko Fischer, the leader of Jewish Community in Osijek, whose building had been bombed by the Yugoslav army (Bauman, 1991). She implied that Davidson was unfamiliar with the circumstances of Jews in Croatia exposed to Serbian aggression. Nevertheless, accusations continued; examples are presented in Table 2.
Antisemitism in Croatia in general.

Explosion in front of the Jewish Community in Zagreb.
2. Death threats to the leaders of the Jewish Community.
Sternberg did not provide any evidence. Davidson, P. (1991) Antisemitism in Croatian leadership.

Comparison of democratically elected
Croatian leadership from the 1990s to the Nazis.
Davidson did not provide any evidence.
Croatian soldiers killed an elderly Jewish woman.
Presentation of the victim as "the first Jewish victim" of war.

Klara Mandić and propaganda: Croatian war victim presented as Jewish war victim
The Serbian lobby managed to create a parallel between Jews and Serbs as peoples who had undergone genocide and who, again, were endangered by Croats (Cohen, 1992  the American press that in September 1991 "Croatian extremists" (referring to Croatian soldiers) had killed Ankica Konjuh, an elderly Jewish woman. She presented her murder as "evidence" of antisemitism asking: "Who among us will be next?" (Cohen, 1992;Cohen, 1997, p. 185) Cohen, 1997, pp. 185, 270-271). In December 1991, the Federation of Jewish Communities of Yugoslavia wrote to Mandić requesting she not speak about Ankica Konjuh as "the first Jewish victim of war," but to no avail (Cohen, 1992).

Croatian Jews in the War of independence
In the early 1990s, Jews found themselves in the same situation as Croats and other non-Serbs in Croatia, endangered by Serbian aggression and experiencing all of the war. Some prominent Jews compared the aggression to the Nazis, advocated for international recognition of Croatia and provided significant humanitarian help (see below).

Jews endangered by Serbian aggression
Jews were endangered not as a specific target, but just as other non-Serb population. Some Croatian Jews sent their children to Israel or the USA (Živaković-Kerže, 2006, pp. 214-215).

Jews in
Osijek suffered a particularly difficult fate, but the same as the rest of the city under relentless shelling by Yugoslav military and Serbian paramilitaries (Bauman, 1991 to portray the position of Jews in Croatia as better than it actually was. Fischer responded that the article indeed had been written under pressure, "but the pressure came from the explosions of the enemy bombs" (Živaković-Kerže, 2006, p. 218). In

Croatian Jews advocating for recognition of Croatia
Serbia inherited the diplomatic network of the former Yugoslavia and its strong lobby while Croatian diplomacy was in its infancy. For that reason, Croatian leadership seriously counted on Jews and their community to help Croatia on its path to independence and international recognition. According to the Croatian deputy prime minister Zdravko Tomac, among the basic goals of Croatian foreign policy was to establish contacts with the "Jewish lobbies of the world" (Tomac, 2004, 163 He singled out the bombing of the Jewish Community Center and cemetery in Zagreb and damage to the medieval synagogue in Dubrovnik, the second oldest in Europe. Porges also asserted that the Jewish Community in Zagreb received support from the Croatian government after the terrorist attack in August 1991 (Porges, 1991;Oraić Tolić, 1992, p. 394).

Jewish humanitarians during the War
The Jewish community and some of its members provided different kinds of humanitari- Jakov Bienenfeld had a positive attitude concerning F. Tuđman, did not see him an antisemite, even mentioned once that in 1992 F. Tuđman proposed to him to rebuild the Zagreb synagogue, which Jakov refused: "I answered, Mr. President, I think that it would be stupid to build a synagogue. I do not want to build a monument after five thousand churches and ten thousand schools had been destroyed in Croatia" during the War of Independence" (Držić, 2012).
The Zagreb Community and some its members took part in humanitarian aid to Dubrovnik, the southernmost Croatian city and the UNESCO-designated world heritage site. Dubrovnik was cut off from the rest of Croatia by land, while the Yugoslav Navy blockaded the city from the sea (Nazor, 2011, p. 231). Consequently, the city could not be resupplied with water, electricity, food and medicine. At the end of October 1991, a civic initiative organized a supply convoy named Libertas. The convoy included forty ferryboats that broke through the naval blockade and brought food, water and medical supplies. Among the co-organizers of the Convoy was Slobodan Lang, a physician of Jewish origin and special advisor for humanitarian affairs to President Tuđman; Land's paternal grandparents were killed in the Holocaust. After the arrival of the convoy, Lang opened a Convoy Libertas Office in Dubrovnik which was "the only public place for gathering in Dubrovnik," as well as "a place for coordination, events, planning and informing" (Lang, 1997, p. 114 And a sick man who would want to hide there. And a priest who would provide support. This is why it was destroyed. To destroy these people" (Lang, 1997, p. 10).
Lang even compared the citizens of Dubrovnik who had to leave their homes to Jews in World War II: "They sailed, fleeing like Jews were fleeing once in the face of fascism" (Lang, 1997, p. 13 (Lang, 1997, p. 73).
Lang documented the shelling of the synagogue and Jewish cemetery in Dubrovnik in early November 1991 (Lang, 1997, p. 19). Along with prominent citizens of Dubrovnik, Lang appealed for help from international humanitarian organizations to preserve the lives of civilians and cultural heritage of the city (Lang, 1997, pp. 124-127). During the war, Lang organized or helped found several humanitarian organizations. After Operation Storm in 1995, which liberated most of the occupied Croatian territory and ended the war, Lang co-organized "welfare centers" in some liberated Croatian towns "to protect the old and infirm who remained in their homes in wooded areas." Serbian civilians en route to Serbia were provided assistance as well (Lang et al., 1997, p. 4 (Rudolf, 1999, p. 84;Rudolf, personal communication, February 7, 2014 Porges's "Appeal" and to "the favorable position of Jews" in Croatia emphasizing the first time mention of Jews in Croatian constitution (Šmidt, 1991, p. 8).
At Davor Štern, another prominent entrepreneur and self-described "half-Jew" (Radoš, 2005, p. 146), was the head representative of Croatian oil company INA-Industrija nafte in the Soviet Union in the 1980s. In 1994, F. Tuđman called him to return to Croatia where Štern became a member of HDZ. He became deputy minister and then minister of economy from 1995 to 1997. Štern was active in Croatian diplomacy, and contributed to the establishment of diplomatic relations between Croatia and Israel in 1997. He claims that F. Tuđman was not an antisemite and that had "a great love for Judaism" (Radoš, 2005, p. 146).
Some regard the Jews in Croatian political life as "court Jews". One of them is journalist Ljubo Ruben Weiss who had also lost family members in the Holocaust. In 1991, during aggression on Croatia, he emigrated to Austria (Margetić, 2013).

Relations of Croatia and Israel
Influence of the Serbian lobby in Israel was felt even after the State of Israel, by American initiative, recognized Croatia in April 1992. Hebrew University of Jerusalem professor Igor Primorac (2000, p. 13) claimed that from the beginning of the dissolution of Yugoslavia Israeli authorities took the "Serbian side" and that Serbian lobby in Israel was very aggressive. Consequently, Israelis interpreted Serbian aggression in Croatia as a consequence of World War II, so up until 1995 they did not condemn Serbia for its war crimes.
F. Tuđman's associates claimed that the Croatian president took decisive steps to bridge the gap between Croatia and Israel to improve the international position of Croatia.
In May 1992, he sent congratulations to the Israeli president on the occasion of Israeli Independence Day (M. Tuđman, 2015a, p. 297). F. Tuđman desired a speedy establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel (M. Tuđman, 2015b, pp. 322-325) and expressed the wish to visit Israel and personally apologize for the Ustasha crimes against Jews in the NDH (M. Tuđman, 2015c, pp. 363-364). Štern stated that during his official visit to Israel in 1997, in the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs they were still speaking about the "chauvinist and nationalist" Croatian government and considered F. Tuđman a "hater of Jews." Štern claimed that those opinions had been formed based on F. Tuđman's Wastelands so it seemed that the opinion of F. Tuđman and his government at the time had not changed, even though the controversial quotes had been taken out of the book. Nevertheless, Croatia and Israel got closer to establishing, diplomatic relations.
Discussions about the establishing of diplomatic relations were initiated in August 1997 (Radoš, 2005, pp. 149-150) and concluded a year later in New York (Malenica, 1997, p. 48). Resistance to F. Tuđman's visit to Israel, however, was still strong, so instead of him, Minister of Foreign Affairs Mate Granić went on an official visit (Radoš, 2005, pp. 150-151).
Despite the establishment of diplomatic relations, F. Tuđman's apologies and the removal of the controversial quotes from his book, one influential American web site called him a racist and antisemite when reporting on his death in December 1999 (Leicht & Schwarz, 1999).

Conclusion
Interpretations, particularly in international circles, of F. Tuđman's 1989 book Wastelands of Historical Reality and statements from the 1990s are at odds with his de facto relation with Jews and his policy towards Jewish community in Croatia and the State of Israel. Most authors who wrote about F. Tuđman, his opinion about the Holocaust and his attitude towards Jews appear not to have used primary sources, but uncritically relied on questionably and, possibly, tendentiously translated excerpts of F. Tuđman's book. Authors who alleged that F. Tuđman's statements from 1990 attempted to rehabilitate the Ustasha regime ignored the plethora of speeches and writings where he was highly positive towards the Partisan resistance to occupiers in World War II (in which he himself actively participated) and in which he condemned the Ustasha crimes. This attitude was incorporated into the Croatian constitution and formed a significant part of F. Tuđman's personal history.
Whatever the true aim of these authors, they neither contributed to scholarly historiography nor to the establishment of justice in the afterwar period.
In distinction to the reverberations of the Serbian propaganda, the Jewish community in Croatia was endangered by the JNA and Serbian paramilitaries, not by Croats. Prominent Croatian Jews advocated for international recognition of Croatia, refuted claims of antisemitic Croatian leadership, participated in Croatian leadership and provided humanitarian help to their country during Serbian aggression. One can argue that the significance and scope of contribution by Croatian Jews to the establishment of Republic of Croatia greatly surpasses the small size of their community.