80th Anniversary of Serbs’ Killings Commemorated in Croatian Town

Croatia's Serbian National Council, SNV and the NGO Documenta - Centre for Dealing with the Past on Thursday commemorated the deaths of around 400 Serbs who were killed by Nazi-allied Ustasa members under the World War II-era Independent State of Croatia in the town of Glina 80 years ago.

"In the last few months, there have been some steps towards condemning the crimes of the Independent State of Croatia, but more are needed because we are all witnessing long-running revisionism from 1991 to today," Vesna Terselic from Documenta said.

A religious ceremony was held in the Orthodox Church in Glina and then participants laid wreaths at the local Orthodox cemetery. On behalf of the town of Glina, a wreath was laid by mayor Stjepan Kostanjevic from the Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ.

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

The mass killings of Serbs in Glina began on May 11, 1941, when Ustasa members started arresting Serb men over the age of 16. They were killed on the night of May 12-13.

Another 1,000 local Serbs from Glina and the nearby town of Vrginmost were killed by Ustasa units in July and August 1941. Some were murdered in Glina's Orthodox church, which was then burned down.

Both Croat and Serb civilians were killed in Glina during the 1990s war.

After Croatian forces retook the town from Serb rebels in August 1995 in Operation Storm, local authorities removed a plaque dedicated to the victims killed in the church during WWII.

Pupovac called on representatives of the two largest churches...