Croatian Street Names Still Bear Names of WWII Fascists

On April 10, 1941, Slavko Kvaternik, the deputy leader of the Croatian World War II-era fascist Ustasa movement, proclaimed on Zagreb Radio the establishment of the Independent State of Croatia, NDH.

The NDH, a fascist puppet state supported by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, existed from April 1941 to May 1945 and passed racial laws targeting Serbs, Jews and Roma and ran a system of concentration camps.

But although the NDH is the biggest stain on Croatia's history, there are still signs of the glorification of the Ustasa regime in the public arena, such as streets named after its officials or public figures who were close to it.

Croatian historian Hrvoje Klasic, who was involved in research into street names, with the support of World Jewish Congress, an international organisation representing Jewish communities, has discovered that over 30 streets in Croatian cities and municipalities are, or were until recently, named after some 25 people who were directly or indirectly connected with the NDH.

"These are mostly certain intellectuals, writers and priests who gave support to the Independent State of Croatia and the Ustasa regime," Klasic told BIRN.

He said that maybe some of them did not completely agree with the Ustasa movement, but he argued that people who did not express their views about the regime more clearly or who tolerated it in any way should not have streets named after them.

'Cowardly' glorification of the Ustasa

A street sign honouring NDH minister and author Mile Budak in the eastern Croatian city of Slavonski Brod. Photo: Wikipedia/Andrija.

Klasic explained that the majority of the streets dedicated to NDH officials and sympathisers got their names in the early 1990s...