An article about a lesser-known alleged extermination camp from the WW2 era, Jasenovac, caused a bit of a stir and some infighting a couple years ago. Before we get into that I’ll let Wikipedia fill you in on the mainstream description of Jasenovac:
“Jasenovac (pronounced [jasěnoʋat͡s])[4] was a concentration and extermination camp established in the village of the same name by the authorities of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) in occupied Yugoslavia during World War II. The concentration camp, one of the ten largest in Europe, was established and operated by the governing Ustaše regime, Europe’s only Nazi collaborationist regime that operated its own extermination camps, for Serbs, Romani, Jews, and political dissidents.[5] It quickly grew into the third largest concentration camp in Europe.[6]
[…]
There has been much debate and controversy regarding the number of victims killed at the Jasenovac concentration camp complex during its more than three-and-a-half years of operation. Over the last few decades, a consensus has formed in support of estimates of the Ustaše regime having murdered somewhere near 100,000 people in Jasenovac between 1941 and 1945.[2][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]“
The article that started all the fuss was published by the Jerusalem Post (JP) by David Goldman on August 14, 2021. It was titled “This disgraceful mocking of the Holocaust needs to stop now.” The article can only be found on JP’s site by viewing a scan of the paper it was featured in.
I would like to take a moment to mention that Thomas Dalton has written a more in-depth article about Goldman’s article which you can read here. I suggest you check it out.
The long of the short Goldman article is that he laments the manipulation of historical facts related to Jasenovac. Goldman criticizes the propagation of inflated victim numbers at Jasenovac, highlighting the lack of concrete evidence and questioning the motives behind such claims while at the same time uncritically believing the official narrative about the alleged Nazi extermination camps. Goldman also has the chutzpah to complain about the exploitation of the Holocaust for non-Jewish nationalist agendas.
The following passage from Goldman is one of the statements that Holocaust fabulists took issue with:
“Located in Croatia about 100 kilometers south of the capital Zagreb, Jasenovac was established by the collaborationist Ustashi in August 1941. According to most sources, about 85% of inmates were Serbs, Roma, Bosnians and Croats, while the remaining 15% being Jews. In 1947-48 Yugoslavia’s forensic examination of the camp and surrounding county found that all up, between 2,500 and 4,500 were killed in the camp.”
Questioning the numbers is a big no-no.
I personally like this tasty morsel from Goldman’s article:
“Just as puzzling was Yugoslavia’s decades-old assertion that more victims’ remains are ‘to be discovered,’ yet during its 47-year rule of the site, it never bothered once to try and locate these mysterious ‘missing’ remains.”
Wait, so it is unreasonable to say the bodies are there just waiting to be discovered? You mean like the alleged mass graves that allegedly contain all the alleged victims of the Einsatzgruppen?
I’m not sure if Goldman failed to see the problems he was opening up the official Holocaust narrative to. Regardless of his thought process, his article caused Holocaust fabulists to do some major damage control.
JP retracted the article and issued an apology stating that it “unfortunately was not properly subjected to the verification process“ and that the editorial board “sincerely regrets this mistake.“
JP also issued an opinion piece on August 17th, 2021 titled, “Shame on those who seek to revise history of the Holocaust“. In this piece that was meant to do damage control the author ends up digging the hole deeper by saying this:
“Following the ridiculous, pseudo-scientific, anti-civilization and shameful logic which in this revisionist article denies the number of victims in Jasenovac solely on the grounds that there are no adequate forensic data (except for 2,500 to 4,500 victims, as the author falsely claims), we could ask a question as to whether it is possible to deny in the same way the number of 1,200,000 to 1,500,000 killed in Auschwitz since there is no forensic evidence for that claim either?” (My emphasis added.)
It certainly makes me happy when Holocaust fabulists admit there is no forensic evidence for the death count at Auschwitz. To answer the question I would say yes, yes it is possible to deny—or at least question—both the official Holocaust narrative and the Jasenovac narrative, because there is no forensic evidence for either claim.
After an apology and an opinion piece lambasting Goldman, JP felt it necessary to issue yet another opinion piece about Goldman’s article. In that opinion piece, author Efraim Zuroff wants you to be assured that “there is no doubt that at least approximately 100,000 persons were murdered [in Jasenovac] by the Ustasha.” Ustasha was a Croatian fascist and ultranationalist organization.
There is yet more fallout from Goldman’s article. Even though JP had issued an apology and taken down the article, Yad Vashem still felt the need to condemn it. Dr. Robert Rozett, Senior Historian International Institute for Holocaust Research, signed a statement that read, “At a time when Holocaust distortion is a significant feature in public discourse, it is incumbent on us to ensure that facts and content published in the media be as accurate as possible, and based on reliable sources. Ignoring this basic responsibility plays into the hands of those who seek to intentionally misrepresent the historical record.” “Reliable sources” being sources that agree with the official Holocaust fabulists. There is also criticism from the Genocide Victims’ Museum.
The Holocaust fabulists went out of their way to cement the official story about Jasenovac, which is that it was an extermination camp with much more than a few thousand deaths. They made it clear that there will be no questioning of the matter.
But was Jasenovac really a death camp? Continue to part two where I examine the claims made about Jasenovac
Although I know more than the average person about the ‘Holocaust’, I’d never heard of Jasenovac.
Thanks for the link to the Thomas Dalton article — I note this part (read the article for the context): “Because in April 1945, Hitler flew in special machines to Jasenovac. These machines were used to dissolve the bones that were left.”
That’s interesting, because of course the general question of what happened to all the bones is one that has long been asked by revisionists — it’s also interesting because of what the German language Wikipedia page about Jasenovac says — it’s always a good idea to check the German version, since there are often significant differences — here’s a key passage: Es war das einzige Vernichtungslager im Zweiten Weltkrieg in Europa, in dem ohne deutsche Beteiligung planmäßig gemordet wurde. — it was the only death camp in Europe that operated without any German participation.
Yet per the Dalton article, a ‘historian and Croatian Jew Ivo Goldstein’ said that Hitler sent special equipment to ‘dissolve’ the bones — does that count as German involvement?
This mention of bones reminds of an article I consider to be a real tour de force of revisionism:
The Bone Mill of Lemberg
In a very thorough and scholarly way, it absolutely demolishes the ridiculous claim that the foto (see the article) shows a ‘bone mill’ being operated by a ‘sondercommando’.
Interesting find, thanks for sharing. It’s funny how Holocaust fabulists can’t get their stories straight.
I appreciate you
Thank you 🙂