Zagreb, Croatia: Nazi’s Funeral Called Tribute to Antisemitism
July 30, 2008
The Simon Wiesenthal Center reports that the funeral of a former Nazi concentration camp director in Croatia was a tribute to anti-Semitism. Dinko Sakic, the last surviving concentration camp director, died on July 20, 2008 in prison at age 87. He had been convicted of war crimes and sentenced to prison for 20 years. Sakic directed the Jasenovac camp, where tens of thousands of mostly Jews and Serbs, were tortured and murdered.
Efraim Zuroff, a Nazi hunter and head of the Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office, sent a letter to Croatian President Stipe Mesic complaining that the funeral was an “outrageous display of unrepentant racism, antisemitism and xenophobia.” He called for measures against the organizers that included the Catholic church. A Croatian newspaper reported that a priest at the funeral, which was attended by several extreme-right politicians, called Sakic “a model for all Croatians”.
Sources: Jta.org, 07-30-2008
