Come to terms

As a Serbian American who lost dozens of relatives in the World War II genocide in the “Independent” State of Croatia (NDH), I read “Croatia’s troubled history,” April 13, by Efraim Zuroff, with interest.

It astonishes me that in the 21st century, we have a nation where many of its citizens continue to deny its horrible World War II genocidal and Nazi-puppet history.

The NDH had hundreds of concentration camps scattered throughout today’s Croatia, Bosnia, and even parts of Serbia, where hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies were viciously slaughtered at the hands of the fanatical Croatian Ustashe.

One of the many techniques used by Croatian revisionists is to focus only on the Jasenovac concentration camp and then ignore the murders elsewhere. Even the Nazis estimated that some 500,000 Serbs perished in this genocide.

They key here is that there is not a Serb alive today who does not have some close relative who perished during the Ustashe-led genocide of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies.

Croatia is a nation that is still haunted by its horrible genocidal past. Until Croatian leaders acknowledge and condemn this past, there will never be peace or stability in the Balkans.

Those who cannot come to terms with history will surely be doomed to repeat it.

MICHAEL PRAVICA Henderson, Nevada