Jasenovac

Home > News & Events > JRI Obtains Approval from New York City for a Jasenovac Monument in New York\'s Holocaust Memorial Park...

News & Events

JRI Obtains Approval from New York City for a Jasenovac Monument in New York's Holocaust Memorial Park

Three years and three months after the Jasenovac Research Institute filed its application, and after encountering many difficulties in the process, the Jasenovac Research Institute finally won approval today from the City of New York for the first public monument to the victims of Jasenovac to be unveiled outside of the former Yugoslavia.

The inscription for the Jasenovac monument was formally approved by the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation's Holocaust Advisory Committee yesterday afternoon, 15 February 2005, with some minor changes to the inscription.

The information was transmitted to the JRI at 3 PM this afternoon, although the actual decision had been made 24 hours earlier.

Several changes were imposed on the inscription. The City's Holocaust Advisory Committee removed a sentence stating that the total number of victims was between 350,000 and 700,000. However, they did allow the sentence stating that "hundreds of thousands of victims" were killed there. This was the fourth time that the JRI's original inscription had been revised.

The JRI's National Coordinator Barry Lituchy will go to the Holocaust Park Committee office tomorrow to review and sign the final agreement.

The main struggle now will be to insure that the final paperwork and engraving is completed in time for the Day of Jasenovac Commemoration Ceremony on April 17th.

Had the JRI not made an enormous effort and numerous protests, even this advisory meeting may never have taken place as soon as it did.

The establishment of a permanent monument in New York City and the significant help obtained along the way from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and the New York Museum for Jewish Heritage for this project marks an important achievement in the JRI's global efforts to increase worldwide awareness of Jasenovac and the Holocaust in Yugoslavia.

But most important of all is that the victims of Jasenovac now will never be forgotten. And the families of those victims will forever have a place to recognize and remember them. Moreover, Jasenovac is finally being recognized as central to the study and commemoration of the Holocaust around the world.