NDH COMMITTED GENOCIDE AGAINST SERBS, JEWS AND ROMA

BANJA LUKA, OCTOBER 21 /SRNA/ – On October 22, 2015, the National Assembly of Republika Srpska adopted the Declaration on the Genocide Committed by the Independent State of Croatia /NDH/ against Serbs, Jews and Roma during World War II.

The Declaration states that the genocide committed by the NDH was comparable in scale to the Holocaust perpetrated against the Jews by Nazi Germany.

It further states that, in carrying out the genocide, the NDH tortured, robbed, raped and subsequently killed 700,000 Serbs, 23,000 Jews and 80,000 Roma within the Jasenovac system of Croatian concentration and extermination camps alone, as well as people who opposed the regime, who were targeted solely because they belonged to a different nation, religion or race.

It points out that the NDH was the only country during World War II with concentration camps specifically intended for the extermination of children. According to incomplete research cited in the document, 42,791 Serb children, 5,737 Roma children and 3,710 Jewish children perished in these camps.

The Declaration also states that, during the genocide, large numbers of Serbs were forced to abandon their national and spiritual-historical identities, renounce their Orthodox Christian faith and convert to Catholicism under duress in order to save their lives.

In the Declaration, the National Assembly of Republika Srpska calls on Croatia to formally acknowledge, through a decision of its highest state authorities, its historical and other responsibility for the genocide committed by the NDH against Serbs, Jews and Roma during World War II.

The international community, particularly the countries of the anti-fascist coalition, is expected to support the Declaration.